beLIEve
by Meow21
Summary: After witnessing Sonic's dark super form whilst on a rescue mission, Sonic's friends want an explanation for the presence of the dark entity in their seemingly carefree hero. Meanwhile, Sonic's dreams are haunted by memories of his early childhood, before he met Tails and the gang. Are the two occurrences linked? Is the hedgehog's easy going attitude just a face?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1- It's Getting Dark Out

_**Hi everyone!**_

_**This is my first fic so please be nice! Welcome to the first chapter of beLIEve!**_

_**I was always really interested in Sonic's backstory because it is never mentioned in the game cannon even though he's the main…and I don't think it ever will be. So in a way, Sonic's kinda more mysterious than Shadow…**_

_**The storyline follows the game cannon and Sonix X (since Dark Super Sonic appeared in it) and suggests a possible past for Sonic before his first game Sonic 1. Well maybe not, because it is a bit too dark for Sega. ^^ His past may include ideas from Fleetway comics (just maybe!) but will NOT involve the usual Sonic Underground past. **_

_**Rated T for blood and Shadow's swearing. **_

_**Hope you enjoy!**_

* * *

"I'm sorry, mommy says I can't play outside…" a child voice spoke.

A very young hedgehog sat at a table, his big emerald eyes drooping with boredom. A glowing green gem much like the color of his eyes was on the table. The child's cheek was lying on the wooden counter, enjoying the coolness it brought to his skin. It was summer, and it was really hot.

"It's too bad, right? You would have been even prettier if you were in the sun…" the hedgehog muttered as he gazed at the gem's sparkling facets.

He shifted to a more comfortable position. "I hope mommy likes you. I only found you yesterday up in the attic, but I don't even get to play with you outside."

There was a short silence.

"…Really? Do you think the grass is as soft as it looks? Are trees fun to climb?" the child asked curiously.

He stopped his questions when he heard his mother's footsteps entering the kitchen. "Maurice? Who are you talking to? Did you call me?"

The little hedgehog shook his head and smiled. "No mommy. The gem I found. The emerald I found talks to me."

* * *

"What happened Eggy? Did you build this robot from the scrapheap?"

Sonic the Hedgehog grinned while twisting away from the giant-killer robot's claws as they jammed into the wall he had been running vertically upwards on seconds before. He flipped backwards, using the wall to launch himself out of the way of its smashing hands. Dr. Eggman howled in frustration. "Grr, E-678! Crush that filthy rodent!"

Sonic's body arched in mid-air, back-flipping to land with practiced ease on the robot's arm that was now stuck in the metal wall, while sniggering at the doctor's plight in his usual routine manner—fighting robots specifically meant to kill you since you were eight could do that to you. Whilst entertaining, beating Eggman over the years had become hardly much of a work out for the hedgehog. It was pretty much the same every time—break in, destroy whatever killer robot the Egghead threw at him, take whatever he had stolen, and get out. This time though, it wasn't the Master Emerald (surprisingly enough) that had been taken, but rather Cream and Cheese who had been kidnapped for whatever odd reason. …Okay, it was most obviously a trap to lure Sonic into his base but the blue blur simply couldn't resist the open invitation despite Tails' protests to proceed _carefully_. A raised eye-ridge from Knuckles had been enough to make the young fox's shoulders slump. Right. Sonic and careful could never been put in the same sentence.

Racing up the massive robot arm with the speed he was known for, a powerful spin-dash followed by a huge explosion ripped open the metallic ceiling. Eggman was sent flying along with his Egg-mobile thingy into the sky and robot innards scattered across the entirety of the metallic room. "Curse you Sonic! I'll be baaaaack!"

Sonic landed gracefully on the metallic flooring, watching with a grin on his face as his arch-enemy disappeared with a little twinkle. "Whatever Egghead."

"Now…" he rubbed his nose with a finger, turning away from the amusing sight of his nemesis hurtling through the sky to glance around the room to see where Eggman could have possibly hid Cream and Cheese.

He confidently hopped off the broken robot he had dismantled and ventured towards another random room. As he stood at its entrance, he found something he had not originally come there for. Another cheerful smile broke across his face as he stared up at the glowing rays of four chaos emeralds, each in their separate container. "Well, well, well, looks like I just hit the jackpot."

He walked into the room, contouring the four emeralds to examine what kind of stand they had been placed upon. They seemed to be encompassed in what seemed to be a generator-like structure, probably meant to power-up whatever next scheme Eggman had been plotting. But what was really weird was that Tails' radar hadn't picked up their location in the doctor's base. The team had three emeralds, counting the one Sonic currently had in his quills. The two others were probably powering up the yellow fox's plane by now. Speaking of which, it was strange that his buddy hadn't attempted to contact him though the wristwatch communicator Sonic had hidden underneath the cuff of his glove. Tails was meant to be picking him and Cream & Cheese up in the X-Tornado once the hedgehog had defeated the Egghead.

"Yo, Tails," Sonic spoke into the wrist communicator.

There was a sound of static before the young mechanic's voice answer on the other end. "So…nic! Did…find…Cream…Cheese?"

"Hey buddy, I'm not hearing ya too well, but no, not yet. But I found something else," Sonic beamed, despite the slightest sign of a frown appearing on his face.

Miscommunication was rare in Tails' gadgets—they always worked perfectly fine. There was no another sound except the static noise that was so long that Sonic dropped his wrist from his mouth and back down to his side, sighing in confusion. "Tails needs to step it up a little or I'm going to have to do this myself."

He glanced up at the emeralds and was just about to spin-dash the machine when a sultry voice halted him. "My, my lookie here…it's Sonic."

Sonic turned around to find a familiar white bat standing behind him with one hand on her hip. "Rouge?"

"Hi," the bat contented herself with saying with her usual provocative smile.

"Faker, always sticking his nose in where he doesn't belong," a second deeper voice came from his other side.

Sonic turned his head, staring disbelievingly at the red and black hedgehog that appeared out of nowhere. "Shadow? What are you guys doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Rouge shrugged at the blue hedgehog. "We're here for those beautiful chaos emeralds."

"I'm here for my fourth chaos emerald," Shadow deadpanned.

"I didn't expect Sonic to come looking for them himself though…" Rouge sighed as if the blue hedgehog wasn't there. "Guess I rigged the X-tornado's scanner for nothing…"

Sonic blinked before scowling at Rouge. "So you're the reason why I can't hear Tails in the communicator?"

The bat walked over to one of the emerald stands and leaned on its metal plating. "I only intended to make sure I'd find the chaos emeralds first. I don't know what happened to that fox."

"Ok whatever, I need to fin—"

"Mr. Sonic?" a small voice interrupted him.

The blue hedgehog turned to see a little rabbit shift from behind Shadow and take a few steps towards him.

"Cream! Everyone's been worried about you… Are you okay?" the fastest thing alive asked while approaching the rabbit with his trademark smirk, scowl disappearing instantly.

"We found her in a cell on our way here," Shadow said, crossing his arms.

"I'm fine Mr. Sonic, thank you," the five-year old smiled. "Thank you for saving me Mr. Shadow, Mrs. Rouge."

"Chao chao!" Cheese added in Cream's arms.

"Good to hear," Sonic smiled.

"Now if you guys don't mind…" Rouge pushed off from the metallic generator and pulled back her leg to start one of her drilling attacks.

Sonic jumped as Tail's voice suddenly came through from the wrist communicator. "Didn't…def…Eggman…? …und…fire…now!" the fox's distorted voice uttered, interrupting the bat who stared at the watch curiously.

So if it wasn't Rouge's fault that communication was down… Something was off. "Tails, what?"

Another all too familiar voice blared on the other end, almost making his eardrums bleed despite the bad communication.

"Oh Sonic! …darling…!" Amy swooned through Tails' intercom, which only earned an eye roll from Sonic, despite there being something slightly off about her voice too. The words that followed afterwards confirmed his suspicions. "Oh no! …hit! …save us…onic!"

Something was clearly wrong. Sonic jumped as he heard a large explosion on the other end of his comlink. The hedgehog's eyes widened. "Amy? Tails! Are you okay?"

The continual sound of static made the silence seem louder to the now worried blue hedgehog. What was going on? What was that explosion? What if his friends were hurt or…? Sonic shook his head. It was probably just Eggman who had come back for a beating. Yeah. Whatever happened, he needed to find them.

"Cream stay here," Sonic said, reassuming a smirk and saluting Rouge and Shadow. "Catch you guys later."

Forgetting about the emeralds, Sonic was just about to make a dash to search for his friends when the ceiling caved in, cutting off his path from the exit. Rouge gasped as she was forced to leap away from the incoming mass that had crashed through, cutting her off from the chaos emeralds. The fastest thing alive grabbed Cream and followed the ultimate lifeform as both hedgehogs nimbly dodged the falling cement and metal. They arrived to the other side of the room next to Rouge where they weren't in any danger of getting squashed by rubble. Placing Cream down, Sonic smirked knowingly at what had obstructed their path. An enormous gleaming red robot with Eggman sitting at its helm behind a protective sheet of glass. It was holding in its retractable hand two limp bundles of fur and two chaos emeralds in the other. Sonic's smile vanished.

"Eggman!" Sonic shouted, his worry exploding into fear for the bundles of fur he now recognized as Tails and Amy in the new killer robot's hand. "No fair!"

Rouge put a hand on her hip. "Now that's playing dirty."

Eggman must have caught Tails and Amy unawares; after all, Sonic _had _dealt with him, so the mad scientist shouldn't have been a problem. Eggman must have shot down Tails' X-Tornado. So that's why there had been that nerve-wracking if not annoying static—Eggman must have hit Tails' communicator.

"Ohohohohoh!" the mad scientist laughed evilly. "I told you I'd be back! With my ultimate creation, the Egg-nnihilator!"

Before any of them could react, the two chaos emeralds taken from the X-Tornado were dropped into a glass compartment in the robot's stomach and the four chaos emeralds previously sat in the containers were hoovered up into the robot along a thick black tube. "I have your furry little friends to thank for such wonderful additions to my collection of chaos emeralds! Without their unlimited power, I would never have been given such a wonderful opportunity to crush you Sonic!"

How many times was the Egghead going to use the chaos emeralds before it finally registered in his brain that it always resorted into something that backfired on him? Eggman leaned over to peer down at Sonic, Shadow, Rouge and Cream.

"I see you brought more of your pesky friends along. No matter, the Egg-nnihilator will still destroy you all!"

"Hmph," Shadow took an angry step forwards. "Give me back my damn fourth chaos emerald!"

Rouge almost face-palmed.

"I'm deeply sorry Shadow, but I can't afford to that," Eggman grinned.

Sonic impulsively moved forwards too, unable to stand the sight of his friends in the robot's vice-like grasp. "Let em' go Eggman!"

"Ah, ah, ah, Sonic," the doctor wagged his finger with an evil grin on his face. "I still need _your_ chaos emerald in order to be unbeatable! Give it to me, or your friends will pay the price."

At his words, he snapped his fingers and the robot began to squeeze Tails and Amy. The duo were forcefully torn from their unconscious state and screamed in pain. One of Tails' baby blue eyes was shut close in pain with his teeth gritted together, while Amy wailed in terror. "Sooooniccc!"

Sonic gasped. "No! Stop!"

The grip ceased and both his friends sucked in a pained breath.

"Give me the chaos emerald Sonic!" Eggman demanded.

"No! Don't do it Sonic!" his best buddy yelled at him.

A heavy gust of air whizzing by him signalled Sonic that Shadow had already darted towards the robot, leaping into the air. "Chaos Spear!"

The chaos spears harmlessly bounced off the robot's metal plating, crashing into the adjacent wall near the black and red hedgehog. Almost immediately, the robot responded by glowing with the power of six chaos emerald and smashing its enormous metal arm into Shadow with alarming speed, sending him crashing back to Sonic and Rouge's feet. "Shadow!"

The ultimate life-form staggered upwards, wiping the trail of blood off his mouth. "Dammit…"

Eggman had a huge grin on his face as he glanced down at them. "Try that again and your friends get crushed."

The blue hedgehog's teeth gritted together. Sonic the Hedgehog was one of the most graceful and athletic mobians on Mobius, with a reputation for smashing through killer-robots with alarming ease at supersonic speeds. On the other hand, the fastest thing alive had never been good at dealing with hostage situations. In the past, they had always resorted to him either ending up being blown up in a space-capsule or sent 200 years into the future. Conclusion: hostage situations were not Sonic's forte.

He had considered spin-dashing the mad doctor here and now like Shadow had done, but with six chaos emeralds powering his robot and his friends held hostage, the hedgehog figured it was probably not the smartest move. The blue hedgehog winced. Even if he gave the emerald to Shadow to perform chaos control, one emerald wasn't much against six of them. Torn between the safety of his friends and the consequences of giving the emerald to Eggman, the blue blur resulted to do what he always did. He pulled the glowing blue gem out of his quills.

"No Sonic! He'll hurt you!" Amy screamed at the blue hero.

"Please Mr. Sonic…" Cream said softly, her little face and big eyes wide with fear.

Their pleas made the hedgehog cringe with concern for their safety. These were his friends…Cream's mother was anxiously waiting for her five-year daughter's safe return… and Amy and his eight-year old best friend…now in the clutches of the mad scientist…

"Promise you'll let them go, Eggman!" Sonic demanded at the fat scientist who was currently grinning from ear to ear at his victory.

The doctor's glasses glinted ominously. "Why of course, dear friend, why wouldn't I let them go? Here, I'll let one of them go to prove my generosity."

The giant machine loosened his grip on one of his friends and let Tails drop like a ragdoll. Sonic sprinted to catch his little brother, his eyes wide with worry. He caught the little fox before the kid hit the ground. "Buddy, are you okay?"

Tails moved with difficulty, as if every movement he made resorted in pain, but he flashed Sonic a reassuring smile. "I-I'm okay, Sonic. You…You think you can beat him?"

The hedgehog smiled in relief, before giving his friend a thumbs up. "You bet."

The speed demon dashed across the opposite end of the room and deposited his friend as far as possible from the conflict where Cream and Cheese were, before returning to his original spot with his stand-off with Eggman. Pulling out the emerald from his quills again, Sonic chucked it at Eggman while trying to pull off a confident smirk. "Ok, take it."

He had no other choice. Shadow stiffened.

"Sonic, no!" Amy protested again in dismay.

The robot's other hand successfully caught the emerald, and the doctor continued to laugh triumphantly as it was joined with the other emeralds and the killer-robot assumed an ethereal glow of power. The unlimited power caused the bot's grip on Amy to tighten even further, causing the pink girl to scream in pain.

"No, stop! You said you'd let her go!" Sonic shouted with a hand reaching up as if it would stop the mad scientist from further hurting his friend.

"Finally! I have all seven chaos emeralds at my command! I can finally rule this world and establish my Eggman Empire, and become its new ruler! Ohohohoho!" Eggman gloated, too caught up in himself to notice the hedgehog below.

Sonic spindashed at the robot against his better judgement—anything to divert the power-crazed machine's attention away from Amy and divert it towards him. "Hey, robot! Your mother was a tin-can!"

He collided against the killer-robot's armour without making a dent, only feeling the powerful pulse of all seven chaos emeralds when he came in contact with the machine.

"Ggh!" a massive metal leg came up to knee him as the blue blur bounced off the robot, connecting with Sonic's body with a sickening crack.

He was sent flying into the ceiling, choking on rubble, before gravity brought him crashing to the floor. "Ugh…"

The sounds of crashes nearby signalled that Shadow and Rouge had followed his lead and ended up with the same fate. Sonic blearily tried to get up, vaguely noticing Amy bawling his name and Tails and Cream calling for him. There was also a heavy pounding sound accompanied by tremors. He realized he was currently surrounded in a plume of dust and dirt his crashing body had kicked up, which meant that his friends were unable to see if he was okay. The metallic ground where he lay had split and curled up almost like it had been melted by the speed at which Sonic had been sent crashing down. Sonic chuckled weakly as he tried to get up. "Heh… So this is what it feels like when you're up against Super me…"

The dust cleared and Sonic could see that the pounding sound was probably linked to the giant machine hammering the ground with one fist and plumes of metal and ash being kicked up because of it, while holding a crying Amy in the other fist. Rouge was screaming something as she flew over the robot and attempted to land several ineffective kicks on it, but Sonic couldn't hear what because his brain was in a massive daze. Then an idea as to who the Egg-nnihilator was thrashing dawned on him.

"Sh-Shads?"

"Now, now, Egg-nnihilator, no need to be so temperamental…!" Eggman yelled at the robot, his voice uneasy at this unexpected turn of events, slightly surprised that his enemies had been taken down so easily.

Sonic stood back up shakily, the gears slowly turning in his head as his brain rebooted back up again. His entire body was in agony and something just wasn't right with Sonic's ribs. But that wasn't what was on his mind right now. He just stumbled blindly towards the robot, who had just ceased pounding the ground to see Shadow laying where metal had been burnt to a crisp to reveal the dirt ground it was built on, now charred and blackened by the robot's emerald-powered fists.

"Shads?" Sonic said hoarsely, coughing as his ribs strongly protested against his quickening movement towards the commotion. "Shads?!"

He stared at the beaten up form of the red and black hedgehog, unable to understand what was happening.

"Noooo…! Please stop! Shadooow! Sooonicc!" Amy sobbed while trying to wriggle free from the robot.

Rouge darted down and scooped up the ultimate lifeform and flew away from the machine as fast as she could. "Shadow? Shadow! Talk to me!"

The ultimate life-form didn't respond. Sonic continued stared blankly at the pair as Rouge lay Shadow down on the metal and shook him repeatedly. "Shadow…!"

Sonic didn't understand. This was meant to be a usual fun rescue mission where in the end he saved the day and everyone was safe and unhurt. No one was supposed to be crying. How had it come to this? If he hadn't given Eggman the chaos emerald…

All his fault.

Sonic wasn't sure if he was waiting for Shadow to get up, or hoping someone else would step in and do something about the out-of-control robot that was slowly making its way towards his friends with Amy in tow. Sonic didn't know. All he knew was the right now, he couldn't move even though he was shaking. And it wasn't because he was scared either.

He didn't know what was happening, why he couldn't move… He was just so angry. He could hear everything. Eggman gloating and the pounding of the robot coming towards him, marching to hurt his friends. Rouge's hiccupping as she cried holding a limp Shadow in her arms. Everything was suddenly happening very slowly. He could feel all seven chaos emeralds inside the robot. He didn't notice the robot's grip tightening on Amy, but he heard her ear-splitting scream of terror and pain. "Soooniccc!"

He covered his ears and sank to the floor. _"Stop…"_

"Amy!" he heard Cream's breathing hitch as her eyes watered with tears. "Mr. Sonic, please!"

Everyone sounded so scared… Was it possible that Shadow might be dead? _Fail, just like before…_

"_Stop…" _Sonic tried to stop the burning, the chaos emeralds were—

"Sonic!" Tails shouted from his wounded position up against the wall. "It's coming!"

"Shadow, please!" Rouge begged.

It just happened.

Sonic just snapped.

The room exploded with pitch black aura, wreaths of abyss swirling around the hedgehog as his fur darkened to a deep dark blue, and a murderous scowl formed on the hero's usually cheerful face. His eyes glowed like incandescent white pools of nothing, glinting like knives.

Everyone stared. The robot seemed to shudder uncertainly.

Dark Super Sonic's voice came out like flint. **"You. You did this."**

* * *

_**Sorry if this first chappie was a bit slow paced, it'll get much faster. Just needed it long in order to set up the mood properly. ^^**_

_**Hope you enjoyed reading, maybe let me know whatcha think?**_

_**Thank you~ :)**_


	2. Chapter 2: AWOL

Chapter 2: AWOL

_**Hi!**_

_**I'm so thrilled I actually got reviews! :D Thank you to all those who made my day for just writing something, with such positive feedback as well! I wasn't expecting much being new to this fanbase, so it's great to have people writing back hehe. :)**_

_**Thank you for the favs and follows too! ;) I'm glad you all enjoyed it :) **_

_**It's also great to know that everyone who reviewed thought all the characters were indeed in character, because I honestly dislike it when they're out of character…! Although writing about Sonic's past is gonna be a big challenge to keep him in character because well…he's a bright and cheerful hero, and we can't have him all doom and gloom about his past while keeping his backstory touching and well…dark. (Insert evil mwahaha here…) But I'll do my best~! :) So**__** please tell me if you think Sonic or his friends veer off into some out-of-character dirt road heehee… **_

_**Rated T for blood and swearing.**_

_**This chapter is seen mostly **__**through Shadow's POV.**_

_**Hope you enjoy!**_

* * *

"**Eggman!"**

One could easily count on one hand the amount of times they had seen Sonic the Hedgehog angry before. Shadow, for one, had seen the most and the last of it during their second confrontation on Prison Island. Angered that Shadow had suddenly waltzed in and posed as the blue hedgehog (while cramping up his style), Sonic had been determined to settle the score with the black and red hedgehog that had framed him. Insults such as 'faker' and angry spin-dashes had been thrown at the ultimate lifeform here and there, but that had been pretty much it as far as this 'anger' went.

Other than that, Sonic's friends had never seen the light-hearted hero get angry before. However, this—this was beyond what they believed was possible from the blue blur.

Sonic the Hedgehog was not angry—he was enraged.

Wrapped in abyssal swirls and crackling black aura, stood Dark Super Sonic with the most commanding and intimidating presence anyone had ever seen. Everyone who had been previously overwhelmed with despair and fear at their hopeless situation had paused, those feelings instantly forgotten when their eyes had caught sight of Sonic's livid dark form.

In Rouge's arms, an awoken Shadow could see through half-closed eyes the appearance of his happy-go-lucky rival. His feelings were the same as everyone else's: confusion and shock.

Had Sonic managed to go Super Sonic? That thought was instantly dismissed, because Super Sonic always radiated a reassuring and friendly aura. This form however, was as if the sunny rays of Super Sonic had been eclipsed and the golden fire-like aura had been stomped out to produce heavy smoke-like aura instead—that choked and ensnared anyone who dared to approach it.

"S-Sonic?" Amy gasped in confusion from the clutches of the Egg-nnihilator.

The robot took an involuntary step back as Eggman's brows creased fearfully. Out of everyone here, only the doctor had witnessed Dark Super Sonic before. He very well knew what that entity was capable of.

"S-S-Sonic!" Eggman gulped while locking his hands into a begging position. "Take it easy on me, I'm sorry! I'll give you back your friend and the emeralds I swear! Just don't hurt me!"

Shadow watched helplessly along with the others as Sonic didn't move or seem to be able to hear him.

The ultimate lifeform couldn't find the strength to get up. The damn emerald-powered machine had wrecked most of his ribs and one of his legs was in agony. He could feel the pull of unconsciousness tugging at his eyes again, but stubbornly resisting the momentary painless peace it offered to him. If he couldn't stand up and fight, he vowed that he would at least watch what was happening despite hating every moment of his powerless state. If only he had all the emeralds…

"**You'll pay for what you did,"** Dark Super Sonic snarled while taking deliberately slow steps towards the robot.

His friends scrutinized in disbelief the changed dark blue hedgehog as he sniggered uncharacteriscally cruelly under his breath as he approached the robot, watching Eggman beg for forgiveness and squirm in the chest of his machine.

"S-Sonic?" Shadow vaguely heard Tails inquire in astonishment behind him, as if unable to connect his warm-hearted hero with the demonic blue-black fury before him.

Again, his name was met with no response from the dark super form.

In a blast of dark energy,a completely driven-over-the-edge Sonic just vanished.

Leaving wreaths of smoke in his wake, a flash of chaos control later, Dark Super Sonic was already behind the Egg-nnihilator. Shadow and the others had merely blinked, and the robot had quickly changed from a pristine glowing super-machine to a mutilated and melted metal carcass with a giant hole skewering its body. The arm holding Amy had been severed, leaving the pink hedgehog to drop onto the now lax hand with a surprised scream. Tendrils of electricity and chaos energy sparked around the robot caused Eggman's hands to fly to his head. "N-No…! Impossible! No, no, no, no, no, no—"

The robot promptly exploded, metallic plating flying across the room. Everyone had to duck in order to avoid being blown away by the sheer force of the explosion.

They all managed to cling onto something, so when the dust settled, nobody had been sent hurtling into the sky. Eggman was already making a speedy getaway in his Egg mobile, and Dark Super Sonic was floating over the broken robot with a wicked smile on his face with all the chaos emeralds in his possession.

And it was over, just like that.

"Show-off," Shadow growled miserably under his breath, while vainly trying to move his leg.

It was then that Rouge had her attention torn away from the shocking dark super form, jolting as she heard the ultimate lifeform's voice.

"Sh-Shadow?" Rouge gasped as she realized the fallen black and red hedgehog was indeed awake. "You're…you're alive…!"

It was then probably cue for a certain blue cretin to joke that the 'Shadow is alive' thing was getting old, but the comment was never made. Upon noticing the absence of it, the ultimate lifeform stared as Dark Super Sonic gazed after Eggman's retreating Eggmobile and bent his legs to dart off after him. Shadow saw Amy grab Sonic's arm to prevent him from leaving, having moved off the robot's severed arm to stop her hero. "S-Sonic!"

Everyone tensed to see what Dark Super Sonic's reaction would be to Amy. The negative energy-powered hedgehog growled and moved to yank his arm away from her, but her grip tightened as she added a second hand onto his blue-black arm. "W-Wait!"

"Sonic…?" Tails voice called to his best friend uncertainly, and Shadow could see the wounded fox stumbling towards his best friend.

Sonic blinked, and his emerald green eyes returned—but his dark and intimidating aura remained. The emeralds in his arms had become pale and glazed over with grey—as if they'd been corrupted in some way—and the more they seem to darken, the more Sonic seem unable to recognize them.

"**Stay away from me!"** Sonic shouted, only half-trying to break free from Amy's grip.

He was still wounded from the Egg-nnihilator's onslaught, and with his fractured ribs it was still hard to move without them hurting.

Amy's voice was worried and tearful. Like everyone else, she didn't understand what was going on. "Sonic…! Wh…What happened to you…?"

His head bent and turned away from all of his friends; as if he couldn't bear the stares he was getting from them and didn't want them to see his face. Like he was ashamed—or perhaps even a little afraid.

All his friends were looking at him in confusion. Was this their hero that had saved them countless times?

"Mr. Sonic…?" Cream asked with a terrified and trembling whisper.

"**Stay away!"**

Shadow exchanged a glance with Rouge, who had recovered from her shaken up state. The bat started to help the black and red hedgehog up, slinging his arm around the back of her neck. They both stood up shakily, Rouge letting her mission partner lean on her for support.

Shadow glanced up at the dark blue blur calculatingly, now able to see the hedgehog better than when he was lying down.

He had never seen such a deep set frown on his blue rival's face before. Sonic's eyes were always open and friendly. Despite the return of his green eyes, his face remained closed off and hateful—much like the ultimate lifeform's once was.

The blue hero remained where he was with all of them—at a standoff—almost like he didn't trust his friends to help him—which was very much unlike the hedgehog. However, he could have easily shrugged Amy off and taken off after Eggman, but he hadn't—which meant there was someone still in there that faintly recognized them.

"Sonic …! Tails and everybody are _hurt_, we need to go _home! _I don't know what's going on with you, but we need to leave Sonic!" the pink hedgehog pleaded him with tears threatening to run down her muzzle in worry.

"I-I'm alright Amy," Tails said as he limped closer to the pair. "S-Sonic… You need to calm down, okay? You're not yourself…! We need to get out of here, okay Sonic?"

His baby blue eyes flickered with hesitation, as if he was unsure exactly how to deal with this Sonic. Shadow growled as he watched the dark blue form back away from some of his closest friends. They were all worried about him. Whatever game his rival was playing, it had to stop.

"**Eggman will die, I'll promise you that. There's nothing any of you can do to—"**

The emeralds slipped from his arm and scattered onto the ground as Sonic's eyes suddenly rolled at the back of his head and he collapsed onto the rubble, his friends calling his name.

* * *

Shadow sat impatiently while waiting for everyone to stop running around Cream's house like it was World War III. It had been three days since their encounter with Eggman, and after painfully walking all the way back by foot, the young rabbit's house had been determined to be the closest place to rest and recover from the bedraggled group's wounds.

Tails, Amy and Rouge had managed to recover more or less from their injuries with a few bandages here and there. Rouge's wing was still on the mend from the Egg-nnihilator's onslaught, so she was forced to stay at Cream's house until she could fly again. Much to her dismay, she wouldn't be able to fly up to Angel Island to 'greet' Knuckles and the Master Emerald for a while.

Shadow had managed to heal himself thanks to his affinity with chaos energy, so he didn't have to face the humiliation of walking with his leg in a cast for a few weeks. He had taken most of the beating from the Egg-nnihilator after all. Not to mention a big beating to his ego.

The red and black hedgehog looked on irritably as Tails scrambled back up the stairs with a first aid kit while Cream ran up carrying a plate of cookies.

"He's waking up!" Amy shouted excitedly to no one in particular as she followed Tails and Cream up the stairs.

Shadow grunted as he resumed watching TV, although he wasn't particularly interested in what was going on in the talk show. Instead, one ear was directed upstairs where the current centre of all the attention was located, lying on a bed like he had been for the past three days without any sign of life whatsoever. Well. Sonic _had _been badly hurt by the super machine himself, Shadow supposed. And everyone had been more than alarmed and worried by the appearance of what Tails had decided to call Dark Super Sonic.

The little fox genius had conjectured that Sonic had absorbed negative energy from the chaos emeralds in a fit of rage. He had admitted to never seeing it happen before to his older brother, as Sonic had always managed to look on the positive side of things. It was not like him to suddenly flip out—unless it was because his friends had been severely hurt. The use of the energy had exhausted Sonic just like his normal Super form did, hence his collapse.

After passing out, Sonic's fur had returned to their usual cobalt blue and the angry raised quills had fallen back down into his usual swept back style. In turn, the dark energy had returned to the chaos emeralds, and the gems had reassumed their healthy ethereal glow.

Sonic had been out since, and today Faker had just twitched in his sleep and everyone was as nutty as a fruit cake. It riled the ultimate lifeform just how much attention some smiling blue cretin could get over just a damn coma. Not to mention, he was slightly peeved that everyone had believed he was dead in their confrontation with the Egg-nnihilator. It would take much more to write off the ultimate lifeform than a few punches.

Shadow scowled as he remembered Dark Super Sonic's closed off and angry appearance. He didn't understand how a joking faker like that, who always put a smile on everybody's faces, could become suddenly consumed by hate and anger, when the very thing the hedgehog was known for was his annoying and nauseating cheerfulness.

"Well?" Rouge's voice beside him startled him from his thoughts.

She was sat on an armchair beside him while the red and black hedgehog had wordlessly claimed the whole couch.

Shadow glared at her. "Well what?"

"Aren't you gonna go see him?" her lipstick coated mouth smiled provocatively.

"As if I care about that Faker," Shadow growled while changing the channel. "Hurry up and heal already so we can leave this place."

She laughed.

"Aw, Shadow waiting for little ol' me to heal?" Rouge's thick eyelashes drooped seductively. "Isn't that cute."

"I'm only here because you and I both need to be present to file a report back to HQ," Shadow deadpanned, not turning to look at her as he flipped the channel again.

"Vanilla said we could stay here for as long as we wanted since we rescued the rabbit girl. Freeloading is important in the life of a jewel thief you know," she replied while staring at her splayed out gloved fingers, where a newly acquired diamond ring sat.

Shadow growled. It must belong to Vanilla—he'd have to take it back from Rouge later when she let her guard down—they owed the rabbit for her hospitality after all. So, he let it slide for the moment, knowing Rouge was trying to provoke him.

The white bat remained in her armchair, used to Shadow giving her the cold shoulder. She sighed as she went on. "I wonder what Knuckie's doing. It's too bad I can't pay him a visit. He'd probably show more interest in what's going on with Sonic than you."

She was met with what she expected; Shadow's standard silence.

"I must say," she continued monologing, "Aren't you at least a little curious about what Sonic has to say?"

Rouge glanced over at her partner. He seemed to be watching the news, but she had noticed one of his ears angled upstairs. She smiled.

"Your goody-two-shoes rival, a _dark_ super form? Come on," the bat continued to tempt and rile him.

"Rouge," Shadow finally ground out. "Is there a point to this conversation?"

Rouge shrugged, still smiling in her typical provocative manner. "Of course."

The chaos emeralds are said to convert thoughts into power—to be used for either good intentions or bad intentions depending on the holder's emotions.

"Faker has negative thoughts. So what?" Shadow said, still not looking at her.

"So the 'stay away from me' stuff Sonic said doesn't concern you at all?" Rouge grinned, gesturing to an imaginary Dark Super Sonic, "There he was, in one of his _strongest_ forms—"

"I could have easily defeated him with Super Shadow," the red and black hedgehog growled, finally turning his attention away from the TV and glaring at Rouge.

She smirked, satisfied to have caught his attention. All it took was a bit of goading and prodding at his ego. "Sure… But don't you think it's strange that Sonic would act so…scared when he's in one of his toughest forms? I mean, what is there to be afraid of when you have that much power? And he was acting so distant towards his friends too…"

She looked slightly wistful when mentioning the drastic change in Sonic's character when he turned Dark Super Sonic.

"That's to be expected when one is influenced by dark chaos energy. It's happened before," Shadow dismissed her contemplations.

The bat knew that the red and black hedgehog was referring to the Chaos monster that had attacked Station Square. Although the ultimate lifeform had not been there, he had seen video footage of the event.

"But this is way more interesting," Rouge insisted. "Why do you think ol' Eggy didn't look surprised at all? Sure, Eggy was scared, but he looked like it wasn't the first time he'd seen Sonic like that before."

There was a short silence again, the room filling with just the voice of the anchorman from the TV. It was hard to tell whether both hedgehog and bat were either deep in thought or simply watching the glowing talking box.

Shadow's eyes narrowed at Rouge as she suddenly went on again with an intrigued look on her face, still not the slightest bit discouraged by Shadow's resumed unresponsiveness. "It's obvious that Eggman knows something. Don't you wanna find out what?"

"Out of everyone here, you seem to be the least surprised about Sonic's dark form—you almost seem happy," Shadow reproached her, silently wanting to chaos control out of here before he had to listen to any more of Rouge's cryptic comments.

"Hn," she smirked while dropping her made-up eyelids knowingly down over her eyes. "Something's gotta entertain a girl once and a while."

She leaned on one hand which was propped up against the armchair. "Whatever that thing was back there, Sonic has transformed into it more than once."

"So?" Shadow hissed, irritated that the bat was driving him down some seemingly pointless conversation.

"Soooo… Maybe you two have a lot more in common than you think," she winked at him.

Shadow was just about ready to strangle her when she hopped off the armchair and glided out the door. "See ya~."

How dare she compare the likes of faker to him, the ultimate lifeform? That blue joker was nothing like him, and because of that, they were rivals until the end. Whatever stupid adventures the hedgehog had partaken to help Sonic had simply been due to the fact that Shadow owed him much, but that didn't make them friends. Or at least he would never admit anything of the sort to himself.

He sat back down from his half-risen position on the couch, deciding it was pointless to go after the jewel thief.

"Hmph," Shadow closed his eyes and allowed himself a small smirk.

If Rouge thought this conversation was going to push Shadow to worry about Sonic and go upstairs to visit him, the bat was dead wrong. What she had said stuck with him for a while though as he absent-mindedly flicked through the channels.

"_Whatever that thing was back there, Sonic has transformed into it more than once."_

Despite the bat having an extremely annoying way of talking to him, she was surprisingly perceptive. Shadow slapped a hand over his face. What did it matter that Sonic had transformed into Dark Super Sonic before?

When the ultimate lifeform had first met the blue hedgehog in Station Square, he had perceived him as nothing more than a blue cretin who had it good—he had every reason to be grinning like an idiot all the time. That in itself had been reason enough for Shadow to hate the speed demon instantly upon first hearing about him and meeting him in person.

It was only upon their second encounter that the red and black hedgehog had noticed an underlying heaviness beneath Sonic's cocky and brash proclamations. The blue hedgehog's boasting had never been all bark and no bite—Shadow had experienced that first hand.

Although the ultimate lifeform would never admit it to anyone, the blue blur had incredible fighting experience that would not have been developed if he had 'had it all good'. If Sonic could stand up to Shadow's training (being trained as a living weapon), then it was by no means just by sheer luck or simply because of a life experience of defeating a few badnicks here and there. The forces behind Sonic's kicks and punches had been _learnt_.

Although, any hints of anything of the sort had been very smoothly covered up with practiced ease and a well-aimed smile by his blue counterpart. If that had either infuriated Shadow even more, or led him to have respect for the fastest thing alive, the black and red hedgehog didn't know. Perhaps both.

Was there more to Faker than met the eye?

Shadow shook his head, feeling the couch for his favourite chaos emerald he had fished out from all seven of them. He needed to take a walk to clear his head from this confusing mess that he really shouldn't be giving damn about. But as he pawed at nothing, a quick glance towards the empty couch told him his emerald was missing. Shadow fumed.

"ROUGE!"

* * *

Sonic jolted awake, his emerald eyes darting from side to side as if he expected an attack. But what had been darkness before became very quickly blinding light, and Sonic had to squint and blink a few times to adjust to it.

"Hey, Sonic!" his best buddy Tails's face greeted him instead.

He blinked in confusion as he took in his surroundings. He was propped up by several pillows in a room carrying the scent of honeydew and elderflower—an aroma that Sonic associated to Cream's house. But why was he here? And why was Tails, Amy and Cream staring at him like they expected him to start attacking them?

"Uh…Hey guys," he offered them one of his smiles.

All their faces instantly relaxed. He barely had time to brace himself for one of Amy's bone-crushing hugs. "Oh Sonic, my darling you're back~! I was so worried!"

He gasped for air, desperately trying to pry the pink hedgehog off of him before he died without figuring what was going on. "Ugh! A-Amy…?! Tails, help me!"

Not to mention, her hug really hurt his ribs. …His ribs?

The young mechanic only laughed, hiding his uneasiness about Sonic's momentary forgetfulness quite unsuccessfully. He had to pry off one by one Amy's fingers from Sonic in order to prevent her from suffocating him. After the pink girl had reluctantly released him, Sonic noticed the third person sitting by his bed when a heavenly smell wafted past his nose.

"Mr. Sonic, my mommy and I baked you some cookies to help you get better!" Cream said softly as she showed the hero the tray full of wonderfully baked goods.

Despite still being confused, Sonic's trademark smile appeared. "Wow, you did a great job with them Cream!"

Her face brightened up at the hero's praise and smiled happily—Mr. Sonic didn't seem so scary anymore. Said hedgehog started to sit up without the help of the pillows propping him up, but as soon as he did, he bent over and clutched his bandaged ribs. "Ungh!"

"Sonic, are you okay? You took quite a lot of damage from Eggman's robot," Tails asked his older brother while trying to help him sit up.

"What?" Sonic questioned in complete confusion. "E-Eggman…?"

He stared in space for a few seconds, and everything came crashing back like a tidal wave. His face contorted in pain as his hand gripped his forehead. The chaos emeralds…Egg-nnihilator thing…his friends hurt…then…then _that. _Although Sonic felt like he had had no control over Dark Super Sonic until his eyes had reverted back to normal, he remembered every last bit of it. Sonic's entire cheerful expression darkened and his hands gripped the sheets.

"Oh," is all he said.

"Well…at least you're back to normal again…" Tails tried to say reassuringly as he caught on that Sonic had managed to remember mostly everything. "You…really scared us back there Sonic."

"We thought you'd turned into a second Mr. Sunshine," Rouge stepped forwards as she made her presence known to him, gesturing back at a sulking figure leaning on the door.

"Don't push it," a very angry looking Shadow growled at the bat, while walking over to snatch the green emerald Rouge was holding in her hand.

The blue hedgehog found himself eyeing the emerald nervously, before he shook his head rigorously. His friends…all of them had made it out alright. Nothing else mattered.

Sonic couldn't help but feel extreme relief when he saw everyone in relatively good health. And that Shadow hadn't croaked like he'd first thought after all.

But his temporary feelings of relief disappeared when he realized he had gone Dark Super Sonic in front of everybody this time, not just Eggman. Sonic gripped his sheets a little tighter. He couldn't believe that his friends had seen him like that. He couldn't show them that Dark Super's reappearance had bothered him—he didn't want them to worry about him anymore than they already had.

"I'm glad that you guys are all okay," he grinned instead. "Sorry that you guys had to see me like that. You really didn't have to worry about me! I've had a lot worse than this."

There was nothing he could do to change the way they looked at him now. His eyes tightened again almost imperceptibly to most.

"Same to you… but you just…you just…" Amy stopped as her voice shook a little.

"What happened to the X-Tornado?" Sonic quickly changed subject, turning sharply away from the pink hedgehog.

"Well, it took some pretty serious damage, so I'll need to repair it from scratch. It might take a while…" Tails scratched the back of his head miserably.

"Huh, that sucks I guess," Sonic said sympathetically. "Guess we won't be able to get to Knuckles for a while."

He glanced up only to see that everyone was looking at him expectantly. He sweatdropped, and started to move out of bed while trying to ignore the protest his muscles were making. He had to get out of here before things got tight. "Well guys, I'm feeling pretty good…! I think I'm gonna go for a run. See ya."

"Sonic, wait!" Tails said, moving to stop him from further hurting himself by moving around too much.

His older brother hopped off the bed and hid the agony jarring up his legs and up his spine.

"S-See? I'm fine!" he winced while keeping his usual smile on his face and a shaky thumbs up.

He moved towards the door with Tails trailing behind him in case he fell, before Amy barred Sonic's way with her arms stretched out on either side of her. "No Sonic! There's _no way_ I'm letting my _darling_ leave until he's _healed_! On top of that, you need to tell us what happened back there!"

Sonic took a step back as Amy took an angry step forwards. "U-uh… A-Amy listen…! That…That was nothing, okay? Everyone's fine, the chaos emeralds are here and Eggman won't be coming back anytime soon, right? There's nothing to worry about…!"

"That's not at all what you were thinking back there when you…when you…! You were out for bl-blood and it was l-like you didn't see me or notice me at all…! Something was wrong!"

Sonic was sure now. He needed to get out of here. His entire expression hardened a little.

"Nothing's wrong with me Amy, okay?" Sonic said a little too firmly, causing the pink girl and Tails to flinch.

Shadow's eyes only narrowed suspiciously at the hedgehog while crossing his arms. The fastest thing alive felt surrounded as his friends had formed an unintentional circle around him. It had been a long time since he'd felt claustrophobic.

"Guys I…" Sonic hesitated, a flash of uncertainty crossing his usually confident face.

He ducked his head, effectively shadowing his eyes. "I-I need to go."

And without another word, he pushed past Amy and disappeared out the door and into a blue blur before anybody could stop him.

* * *

Much to Sonic's dismay, it started raining. Of all times he had to wake up and decide to run away from his friends, it had to be when the weather was like this. His red sneakers squelched and churned in the mud, doing little to help the grip his shoes offered to increase his speed.

He had escaped out back of Cream's house and into the meadow right next to it, weaving over the hills to make sure no one would be able to follow him. Although the tracks his shoes were leaving weren't helping any—nor were the dull ache his ribs were making with every move he made.

It was weird for the blue hedgehog to say this, but right now he felt that he would rather be in the rain with on-the-mend fractured ribs than back at the house where his friends were asking questions he didn't particularly want to answer.

He skidded to a halt when he found a rather large oak tree with leaves thick enough to provide proper shelter from the rain. It was the one he frequently liked to kick back and relax beneath when he wanted to enjoy a little bit of solitude once and a while.

Sonic glanced back to look and see if anyone had followed him, (which he did almost every time he came to this tree because he didn't appreciate Amy coming to give him a glomp of death) before sitting down between the roots and leaning his back against the cool bark the oak tree offered him.

He listened to the sound of the rain, and wondered what everyone must be thinking right now. He wasn't normally one to care about what anyone thought about him, but this was different. These were his friends who had been by his side for years, not the usual worshippers and fans who expected things of him.

Then again, his friends expected a lot from him too. He was Sonic the Hedgehog for crying out loud. He was a hero, meant to make the things he did look easy with his habitual taunting antics with Eggman. Believe it or not, Sonic had never been good with the whole pressure thing. He never took anything seriously because it took the pressure off, and that allowed him to perform better.

If he didn't care, it didn't hurt.

But that was difficult when your friends you've lived with for years are having their lives threatened by a power-crazed killer robot. Or when all of them are shouting your name, since you're expected to save them—because that's just what you do.

Sonic's eyes closed as he grimaced. What was he supposed to say to them now? That their hero had caved and was actually hiding big bad emotions he'd been suppressing for years? Eggman had understood the first time when Sonic had gone Dark Super Sonic on one of the Metarex leaders.

The sad truth was that above everyone else, his nemesis had known Sonic for much longer than even Tails had. And when Eggman had approached the blue hedgehog after the dark fury had ripped apart two Metarex, the doctor hadn't looked too surprised. But that was because Eggman had seen it even before that. …Much earlier in Sonic's life when the young hedgehog had not yet developed a successful lock to seal all his negative emotions up.

Sonic had turned into Dark Super Sonic many times in his childhood. He didn't want to bring it up again. The past was the past right? He was Sonic the Hedgehog, he didn't look back.

Besides, confronting his friends about it hadn't been the only thing that had caused the hedgehog to flee the house. Sonic wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. The chaos emerald Shadow had swiped back from Rouge had caught his attention back there… And after the whole Dark Super Sonic episode, it was best that he didn't go near any chaos emeralds for a while.

Because for the first time in a long time, from the emerald…Sonic had heard a voice.

"_It is time."_

* * *

_**Whew! That was a really long one!**_

_**Sorry that this chapter was also a bit slow-paced like the last one, and a lot of character thoughts from Shadow and Sonic! **_

_**How the characters all interact with each other is important to me to keep the story as realistic as possible, so sorry for the long dialogues.^^**_

_**I just wanted to explore the camaraderie between Rouge and Shadow to keep things light. Despite what everyone says, Rouge is a underrated sassy character that allows for a bit of humour and mystery in the game canon. **_

_**I also wanted to focus on the shift from rivalry to friendship with Shadow and Sonic and a possible understanding between them, while still keeping the competitive feeling between them going. Again, this is to set up the mood for what's to come…*laughs evilly***_

_**Again, if you think the characters are out of character, please tell me! Also, if you guys wanted to see anything in particular included in Sonic's past, please suggest in the reviews, and I'll consider them. If not, I'll just continue on my merry way ^^**_

_**Next chapter the pace will pick up when Sonic's past returns to haunt him…mwahaha!**_

_**Please review, fav and follow! They make me so happy :D**_

_**Meow21**_


	3. Chapter 3- When It Rains, It Pours

When It Rains, It Pours

_**Hey!**_

_**Does anyone want Super Fleetway or Silver in this?**_

_**Sorry this is a little late!**_

_**Thanks so much for the favs, follows and reviews! ^^ I'm so glad you all like the characters! :D**_

_**This chapter, like last chapter, will explore other characters such as Tails and Amy's POV this time, along with the usual Sonic POV. **_

_**Flashback and nightmare in this! (muahaha)**_

_**Thank you to all who have read this so far.**_

_**Rated T for blood. **_

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

"**We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us." Ricky Jay**

* * *

A very young hedgehog limped through the snow. The weather was harsh and unforgiving as the freezing wind blew out any warmth the child's fur had managed to gather. The snow's pristine surface was disturbed by the hedgehog's staggering footsteps and the circlets of blood that had begun to dapple the snow's whiteness were slowly increasing in number.

His emerald eyes were dulled to a muddy olive colour, as he unseeingly stumbled through the cold while holding a crimson-covered glove over a bleeding wound in his leg. His other hand held his shoulder, which sported a large gash that continued down his back quills. The sticky feeling was unbearable. And the hands that had been placed on top of the wounds were a futile gesture.

The blue pup dropped face-first into the snow, and with dead eyes, watched as his blood spread through the snow like ivy, or perhaps like a potential poison that was slowly eating at him from the inside.

* * *

"I can't believe he just left like that!" Amy fumed.

Everyone was still where Sonic had left them, and everyone seemed a little frustrated by the speedster running off.

"Amy, calm down…" Tails said as he watched the pink hedgehog pace around the room.

"I can't take this anymore! Tails, we have to go after him!" Amy demanded.

"How do you even expect to find him? He's probably miles away by now," Tails tried to convince her while Shadow just watched with a tired look on his face. "Sonic needs some time alone."

"Sonic's my boyfriend, I just know I'll be able to find him!" Amy argued with her usual illogical reasoning of love that Tails could simply never bring himself to understand.

He could only hope she wouldn't pull out her hammer and start swinging it at him.

However, Tails was reluctant to back down. Something was wrong with Sonic, but running after him threatening him with a mallet wasn't going to solve anything. The blue blur was hard-headed and stubborn. What made her think he was simply going to spill his guts when he'd just dashed out to avoid everyone? It was clear that Sonic wanted to keep to himself for once in his life, and so help it his little brother was going to give him his peace and quiet.

"Yeah, are you crazy? Going out after him at a time like this?" Rouge placed one hand on her hip while the other gestured towards the window. "You'll get soaked to the bone before you even manage to find him. On top of that, it's dark out. Then we'll need to look for _you_."

Amy halted as these bits of logic were thrown at her. She looked out the window at the rain, and a sudden thought hit her: Sonic didn't like getting wet. For him to have left running even when one of his greatest fears was raining down on his head, her darling must have really been desperate not to talk to them. The pink girl's eyes drooped and her shoulders slumped. She turned her head away to stare at the floor. "Oh, Sonic…"

Tails walked over to her to place a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Amy, Sonic's not the type of guy who's honest about his emotions…you know that," the fox said sympathetically.

"I know… I just wish he was…I could…we could help him!" Amy's eyes watered a little. "I wish he would tell us what he's feeling…"

"I guess it's hard to tell with Sonic," the mechanic agreed. "But we're going to have to try a different approach if we're going to find out what's wrong."

"We're all worried about Mr. Sonic too," Cream murmured supportively.

"Chao chao!" Cheese added.

"It seems we've all noticed that something's up with Sonic," Rouge added while she gave a little shrug.

Leaning on the room's wall, Shadow nodded almost imperceptibly.

"What do you suggest we do?" Amy asked them with worried green eyes.

"Amy. He's Sonic the Hedgehog, it's not like this is the first time he's been gone for a long time," the white bat interjected bluntly again. "He's been gone for days, weeks, months before."

"I know but this time he's wounded…" Amy fretted, but much less loudly than before, still not entirely convinced.

"We need to try a more discreet approach…" Tails said firmly. "For now, we should give him some time alone. We'll go look for him once the rain stops. I'll figure something out."

* * *

Sonic opened his eyes sleepily to an abyssal darkness that greeted him. The black night stretched endlessly and surrounded him from all sides—even the floor was imperceptibly dark. It was like he was floating in limbo.

He shivered uncertainly as the empty space reminded him of how he felt when he went Dark Super Sonic. He hadn't transformed into it for a long time since his transformation against the Metarex. Back then he had felt like he was burning—the black fire clinging to his livid dark form scorching him from the inside along with his brain, his heart and soul. It was disgusting.

Ever since, he couldn't help but worry about everyone on the Blue Typhoon. He had felt that he was too dangerous and unworthy of a hero to be around—having grown afraid of the dark entity that still lived inside of him. Why wouldn't it just go away?

Sonic decided to finally sit up and rubbed his head; still feeling dizzy due to who knew what. He didn't know where he was, but he didn't need to look around for long—a glowing, green chaos emerald floated a few feet in front of him. Instead of backtracking, Sonic sighed. His face formed into a slight scowl as he stood up, assuming the most confident hands-on-hips stance he could muster.

"What do _you_ want?" his eyes as green as the gem briefly flitted anxiously; but was masked by his usual trademark smile.

"_We made an agreement. It is time you fulfilled that promise," _the emerald glinted as a voice emanated from it.

The voice was laced in different tones and pitches, as if there were several voices talking all at once: low and high, female and male, young and old—all speaking slightly out of synch.

"Sorry pal, but times have changed since you've been gone, and I've moved on," Sonic grinned while jerking a thumb at himself.

The emerald flashed dangerously, forcing the blue hedgehog to cover his eyes from the harsh and blinding light. _"Whether you or anything else has changed or not, we will see for ourselves. You are not the judge of what is about to happen. Nor will you be able to stop it."_

Sonic stiffened imperceptibly, but maintained his normal brash behaviour. "That's what you think!"

The glow of the gem dimmed somewhat to allow the hedgehog to lower his arm. He closed his eyes and shrugged. "I already toldja pal, this agreement of yours isn't happening. Things have changed."

There was a long silence and the blue blur's hands dropped from his hips to his sides to assume a more defiant appearance. The several voices took on a lower tone, all still speaking slightly out of sync from each other. _"It is unlike you to be so keen on breaking a promise, Maurice."_

An involuntary shudder passed through Sonic as he heard that name. His fists tightened at his sides, but he remained silent.

"_Is it perhaps because you have forgotten about our existence?" _

The fastest thing alive said nothing, but a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face.

"_No…? Then maybe…" _the chaos emerald glowed and Sonic gasped in pain as he gripped his head.

"Gah!"

The hedgehog groaned as his head was pounding, the light growing harsher from the emerald—no doubt being the cause of his pain. What was it doing to him?

"_You are afraid that you may lose what you have gained in the past ten years," _the green gem continued shining dazzlingly as the blue blur dropped to his knees with his teeth gritted in agony.

"Ugh! Stop!" Sonic growled.

"_Or is it perhaps that you still hate us… Sonic, is it? Sonic the Hedgehog. What a pretentious name."_

"Ggh!" Sonic continued clutching his head as he felt like all that had happened in the past ten years was being observed and analysed in his brain by a stranger.

"_It seems you still want to live with such fleeting fantasies," _the voices surrounded him, stifled him and choked him as they talked with the most deprecating tone.

"_No matter how fast you can run, you're only chasing a dream." _

He was in agony—his head felt like it was being repeatedly hit with a sledgehammer as tendrils of light from the chaos emerald began to fuse with his body. His arms dropped from his head to clutch his stomach—it was the burning. Sonic's eyes widened as he spat out blood onto the black ground. "H-Huh…?"

"_You have found many friends—but you haven't told a single one of them."_

"S-Shut up…!" Sonic uttered with not as much bite as he expected before his body wracked a massive shudder again.

"_While some time has passed, you are still afraid of us."_

He wheezed as more blood dripped from his muzzle.

"_You have failed."_

"_You have not changed at all."_

Sonic's eyes narrowed for the first time in hurt as he remained on his hands and knees, his eyes staring at the ground as he panted in pain. His teeth ground together. "H-Haven't…"

"_Even after ten years, you're still living a lie."_

* * *

Amy wished her hero would be more open with her.

After self-exiling herself downstairs after confronting Tails, she sat at Vanilla's kitchen table staring out the window at the rain. She wiped at her eyes to prevent the threatening tears from coming out. She didn't know whether she was feeling sorry for herself because Sonic didn't trust her enough to tell her anything or if she was worried about him. Either way, they weren't very nice feelings.

The little rabbit was serving her some hot chocolate, and kept saying comforting words to her every now and then to get her to open up, but Amy only heard them vaguely.

"Mr. Sonic is very strong, don't worry Amy."

"Mr. Sonic isn't hurt too badly."

"Mr. Sonic is always very brave. He never cries!"

"Amy cheer up Mr. Sonic will be back before you know it."

"Mr. Sonic is a hero—he never forgets his friends. He'll come back!"

All these things Cream had said were true. Yet they felt so incredibly empty—what if everything she'd known about her darling had been wrong? Or misinterpreted? The appearance of Dark Super Sonic had suddenly put into question all of these things. How could something so darkly powerful live inside her hero? Where had it come from? It was then that she had realized she didn't know anything about Sonic.

She didn't know if Sonic was happy all the time. She didn't know what kind of parents he had had. She didn't know if he used to wear braces, or if he used to like anything besides running. How had he become so afraid of water? Had he always been fast? How did he decide to become a hero? She knew nothing.

She had met him because tarot cards had predicted him to be the love of her life. He had rescued her from Metal Sonic. He had always been her darling hero that would come and rescue her ever since. But before that? What? She didn't know.

Sonic hadn't told any of them all these things—why?

As she sank further into this saddened state, she saw Cream shift beside her and tap her arm.

"Amy? I added the marshmallows you like in your hot chocolate," she said with a smile.

Amy finally turned towards the little rabbit, giving her a grateful beam of her own. "Thanks Cream."

"Go on dear, it will help you stay warm," Vanilla's temperate voice made Amy glance over at Cream's mother walking out of the kitchen with her own cup.

"Okay," Amy picked up the mug took a sip to test how hot it was.

It had been sitting there for a while apparently, because it was warm rather than boiling hot. The mother rabbit sat down in front of them and began serving Cheese some tea with a soft smile on her face.

"Why did Sonic run away?" the rabbit girl suddenly asked innocently as she cocked her head to the side. "Is he still sick?"

Although the little girl knew what was going on, Cream was still pretty young, and it was tough for the rabbit to always completely grasp the gravity of a situation—mostly because it was kept from her because of her age. But otherwise, the rabbit was surprisingly sensitive when it came to other people's feelings.

"I think he wanted to take a break Cream," Vanilla replied gently. "Sonic's still tired from the fight he had."

"Mr. Sonic sure enjoys taking breaks doesn't he Miss Amy?" the younger rabbit smiled happily at the pink hedgehog. "He really likes running too."

"Chao chao!" Cheese piped up at the little girl's side.

"Yeah, he sure does," Amy smirked, cheering up a little.

"It makes me wonder sometimes," Cream said as she stared out the window where it had stopped raining. "I like running too when I'm playing tag with you and Cheese. But I don't think it's the same thing with Sonic."

The pink girl blinked, turning towards Cream who had taken on a much more serious expression the hedgehog had never seen before. "Cream?"

"You're right Cream dearie," Vanilla said as she sipped some tea. "Perhaps Sonic likes to run because he's escaping something too."

* * *

It was still raining outside. Tails was still in Sonic's abandoned room, hard at work on a desk there. He was giving the finishing touches to what appeared to be a wrist communicator watch very similar to what Sonic had when rescuing Cream.

"So what do you suggest we do now that Sonic's long gone?" Rouge crossed her legs as she sat down on Sonic's cold bed. "You said you'd figure something out."

Amy had left the room still worrying, and Cream had gone after to her downstairs to comfort her. Shadow and Rouge had both stayed, feeling as if Tails had intentionally waited for the pair to leave before he divulged what he was thinking. A sombre mood could be felt emanating from the young fox, and both the bat and hedgehog had quickly taken notice.

Tails shifted a bit as he held up the wrist-communicator he had been working on for the last few minutes. "Since the X-Tornado's communication got taken out by Eggman's missiles, I figured I'd make a temporary one for myself until I managed to build the plane again. You know…in case anything happened and I needed all the data I downloaded to the X-Tornado."

He wrapped the watch around his wrist. He fiddled a little bit with it for a while before looking up again at Shadow and Rouge's expectant stares.

"Like the X-Tornado, this wrist communicator allowed me to talk through Sonic's own communicator and also know his location so I can…well, at least try to keep him out of trouble. So as long as Sonic's still wearing the wrist communicator I gave him, I can pinpoint where he is on my radar," he scratched the back of his head shyly at having to explain to them.

"How do you know he's still wearing it?" Rouge asked quizzically.

Tails rubbed the back of his head again. "Well I don't but…hopefully it wasn't damaged in the fight with Eggman."

"It's all we got," Rouge conceded.

"Can you pinpoint him now on that thing?" Shadow inquired while crossing his arms.

Tails began touching the buttons on the screen and manically fidgeted with it again. "It's still an old back-up copy, but I'm working on it. It doesn't work as fast as the Miles Electric."

The Miles Electric had been fitted in to the X-Tornado, and had been pretty much the brains of the entire machine. But it had blown up with the entire plane after its pilot and Amy had been yanked out by Eggman in their battle three days ago. After having treated everyone's wounds, the young mechanic had gone off to look for it, only to be able to salvage of few metal vestiges of it. Speaking of wounds…

"While this processes Sonic's location, there's something I need to tell you guys that's been worrying me," Tails spoke up after staring blankly for a while at his loading wrist-communicator.

"What did you find?" the white bat sat on the bed asked while her made-up eyelids drooped in boredom. "Is it about Sonic?"

"Yeah… Sonic's been having a lot of nightmares lately. He never tells me what they're about… or why he's screaming…. He hasn't been getting much sleep and I'm worried about him. I'm starting to think now that they're not just nightmares."

Rouge and Shadow exchanged a glance. They both knew he was referring to Dark Super Sonic.

"That's…That's not all…" the fox said after a while.

"I was treating his wounds after I was done with yours Rouge," Tails began before taking a deep breath, "and his wounds weren't really deep, just a few scratches and some severe bruising that would heal if handled carefully. His ribs were fractured so they could mend without me doing anything major to help the bones repair themselves… But I found something I wasn't really expecting…"

Tails shuffled nervously, wondering if Sonic would be mad at him if he told the others. But this was important.

"Go on," the ultimate lifeform grunted.

"While I prodded at his ribs to check how bad they were…I found scars," the fox swallowed.

Rouge and Shadow stiffened.

"Aren't those from his fights with Eggman?" the bat inquired doubtfully after a while.

"I know Sonic's suffered wounds before, but scars are rare because Sonic always healed himself with a chaos emerald. And on top of that, up until now Eggman hasn't really been much of a challenge for Sonic in a long time, so these scars are definitely not recent. The scars are old because fur has grown over them, which usually takes quite a long time. I only noticed because I felt thin line-like lumps when I was checking for bone breakages…"

Tails looked down at his feet. Now that Shadow and Rouge looked at him, the kid looked worn out—he hadn't had that much sleep since they got back. But despite having worked himself to the bone helping everyone recover from their wounds with a little help from Vanilla, the young genius had still put into consideration Cream and Amy's sensitivity to the blue hero being hurt. The fox had realized that Sonic's problems ran much deeper than they had anticipated—and so he had waited for Amy and Cream to leave the room to break the news.

"I ran a scan over his body with the new Miles Electric I'm making—it still doesn't have key instalments like tracking Sonic though. It managed to analyse that the scars were about ten to twelve years old."

"So what are you saying?" Rouge raised an eyebrow, although Shadow seemed to have already figured it out.

"I'm saying that these scars were inflicted before I even met Sonic…" Tails' eyelids fell over his eyes as he made an anxious expression.

They all stood in silence as this bit of information sank in. Shadow's eyes scowled before he turned his head away from Tails, and Rouge closed her eyes and shook her head in disbelief.

"I've never noticed after all these years…because Sonic's scars have been covered in fur but…that's still no excuse," the fox said to himself miserably.

If Amy or Knuckles had been here right now, they would have been there to comfort him, but Rouge and Shadow had much less experience when it came to cheering the kid up—they didn't frequent very often, and it was usually always through Eggman, Sonic or Knuckles that they ever met up.

"So…what do you think it was? Abuse? Bullying?" the jewel thief asked while looking down at her hand where Vanilla's stolen diamond ring sat.

Tails shook his head. "I don't know…"

Everyone vaguely noticed that outside it had stopped raining.

"So what's your point in all of this?" Shadow said, taking a step forwards and crossing his arms.

"The only way we can find out what really happened would be to ask Sonic directly…but that's not gonna happen. I was thinking maybe we could ask—"

"Dr. Eggman?" Shadow interrupted impatiently. "He did seem to know something back in our fight against his robot."

"He didn't even seem surprised when he saw Dark Super Sonic," Rouge added, agreeing with the black and red hedgehog's conclusion.

"Right," Tails nodded. "And it's kinda weird but he's known Sonic for longer than even I have. Maybe he can tell us something… and I thought Shadow could get us there with chaos control since the X-Tornado is down."

The ultimate lifeform opened his mouth but a sudden beeping sound coming from Tails' wrist watch starting ringing throughout the room. The twin-tailed fox shot a look at the screen as a blinking blue dot appeared on a digital map the communicator produced.

He broke into a smile for the first time in a while. "I found him!"

"Where is he?" Rouge asked why leaning on her hand.

"He's not actually that far! I could make it by foot now that it's stopped raining," Tails said happily.

"That's your plan?" Rouge said while raising a brow at him. "Go after him while we blackmail Eggy into spilling the beans?"

"I figured Sonic was more likely to tell one person than an entire audience…" Tails scratched the back of his head once more. "He wants to trouble the least amount of people possible. That's the kind of guy he is."

"It shouldn't be too hard to get into Eggman's base. I can chaos control us straight to him—he shouldn't be a problem for me without the chaos emeralds," Shadow said more to Rouge than to Tails.

The white bat smirked while putting a hand to her mouth and speaking with the greatest amount of sarcasm. "Oh my, have I finally gotten through to you? Could it be that you're actually interested in what's going on around here? _Impossible_!"

Shadow only growled, stalking towards the door with a teasing bat following after him. "Shut up and let's go."

"Whatever you say, Sunshine."

They had barely moved before a familiar figure stood in the doorway.

"W-Wait!" Amy's voice came.

Tails glanced outside the room, noticing the pink girl standing there panting with her hands on her knees. She assumed a more self-assured stance once she'd caught her breath with her hands on her hips and her head held high. "If you're going to find out more about what's going on with Sonic, I'm going too."

Amy seemed to be level headed as she walked towards the bat and hedgehog, her face set in a determined frown. Rouge smirked. "Welcome to the party."

Shadow sighed, pulling his green chaos emerald out of his quills and raising it into the air. "Chaos Control."

The trio disappeared in a flash of light, and seconds later, Tails was left alone in the room. He cocked his head to the side confusedly. He wondered what had pushed Amy to be that resolute?

* * *

Tails walked along the dirt path out of the house, following the dotted line the map on his wrist-communicator had laid out for him. It was difficult to tell whether the old watch was even sending him in the right direction, as he hadn't used it in a long time since he had upgraded it to the Miles Electric.

He had left Vanilla with a very confused looking Cream asking if Amy was okay. Tails concluded that Cream must have said one of her inadvertently inspiring comments that had jolted the pink girl out of her worried state. Either that or Vanilla. The mother and daughter both seemed to have the ability to push the hedgehog back into her spirits.

Now that everything had been set in motion, Tails had set out after his older brother. He didn't know how to go about confronting him, but he hoped Sonic would at least open up a little—just a little, for Tails to find a few breadcrumbs to follow if the blue blur refused to say any more.

He had a little backpack with wrapped chillidogs Vanilla had made in hopes it would ease Sonic into a more relaxed mood. It had started to drizzle again faintly, and Tails had to hope wherever Sonic was there was shelter from the rain. As he trudged through the meadows and reached a hill with a tree on it, the bleeping sound got louder. The young fox could soon make out a blue form sitting among the roots, and from this distance, it appeared that the hedgehog had spotted him. But as Tails got closer, he realized Sonic was asleep.

He was only two meters away now as he silently approached the fastest thing alive so as not to startle him. Then he saw a heavy shiver pass through Sonic's body. His closed eyes were scowling and his ears were flattened against his head. "N-No…!"

Tails winced. His older brother was having another nightmare again. He reached Sonic's side and touched his arm gently. "Sonic?"

"I-It wasn't me…" the blue hedgehog stuttered in his sleep as he jolted violently from his best friends touch. "It wasn't me! I didn't…!"

"Sonic!" Tails shook the speedster in an attempt to shake him out of his seemingly terrifying nightmare.

The hero's eyes snapped open and he grabbed Tails' wrist, his green eyes wild and in slits. "I didn't do it!"

"S-Sonic…" Tails tried to say in a reassuring voice. "You were just dreaming."

The fastest thing alive blinked, and his emerald eyes glinted in recognition. He immediately broke Tails' inquisitive gaze and looked away, releasing his grip from his little brother's arm. "Tails."

It wasn't very often the hedgehog used the little kid's name in such a tense manner. Tails' eyes creased in concern.

"Are you okay Sonic?" the fox asked as he sat down to assume Sonic's eye-level.

The scowl in the speedster's eyes disappeared, and Sonic's usual laid-back face made its appearance for the fox's sake. The blue hedgehog rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, slightly embarrassed to have been caught in the midst of a nightmare. "Yeah. Sorry about that buddy... What's the count?"

"This is the eighth time Sonic…" Tails trailed off.

It had started several nights ago that the young mechanic had woken up to his best friend's screaming. It wasn't something you heard every day from Sonic the Hedgehog, the hero of Mobius. It hadn't been the most reassuring sight either of a shivering hedgehog curled up into a ball of quills. The fox kid had grown to be very worried, and when Cream had been kidnapped, Tails had insisted they proceed carefully because he was worried about Sonic's state of mind.

"How'd ya find me anyway?" Sonic asked as Tails took a seat beside his brother between the roots of the oak tree.

The twin-tailed fox watched the leaves drip with the remainder of the rainfall, deciding for a more quiet approach with the hedgehog. He didn't want to be too pushy or the guy would run.

"I used your wristwatch to track you," the fox replied simply.

He could almost see Sonic smirk. "Heh. I should have known you'd have a way to find me Tails."

"It's not that hard to find someone when they leave shoe tracks behind," Tails chuckled as continued to stare out at the meadows they were looking down at from a top the hill.

Sonic sure liked open spaces. Then again, Sonic sure liked freedom—he fought tooth and nail for it.

"Hey!" Sonic smiled as he elbowed the fox genius playful in the rib. "It was raining and I had to move quickly so I didn't get soaked! Speaking of which, you look like you just took a bath."

Tails ears flatted a little. "That was because I went looking for you, thank you very much."

Sonic rubbed his nose embarrassedly. "Yeah, about that. You really don't have to worry about me buddy. The nightmares will go away and I'll move on, just like I like I always do!"

There was a long silence between the long-time friends as they both sat against the surface of the tree, gazing out at the rainfall they were spared from thanks to the oak tree.

"Sonic… I understand if you don't want to talk about it…" Tails began after a while. "But it sounds like you need to. It'll make you feel a lot better…"

He sneaked a peek at Sonic to see what facial expression his best pal was making. Sonic glanced at him.

"Tails, what are you talking about?" the hedgehog grinned at him with his famous half-smile.

"Sonic…!" the fox said reproachfully. "Those nightmares…they're really troubling you!"

"How do you know I'm not just dreaming about scary spiders?" the blue blur smirked with a teasing look. "Those little creepy crawlies are really something else…"

Tails frowned at the hedgehog—Sonic wasn't taking the kid—or himself very seriously. He never did. The mechanic had to try a much more frontal approach.

"Yeah, because spiders are the cause of you waking up screaming saying 'they're talking to me' and 'it wasn't m'—"

"Okay, okay," Sonic interrupted the fox while putting his hands on his ears and screwing his eyes shut.

The fastest thing alive huffed and the fox sighed.

"What…What d'you wanna ask me anyway?" the blue hedgehog asked after a while.

The fox let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He fiddled with his hands a little nervously. How did he ask him without sending him running? It felt like he was talking to a very breakable piece of glass—which was an odd thought in itself. Strong, kick-ass Sonic. Glass.

"I…I was an orphan before you took me in Sonic…" Tails began hesitantly. "I don't remember my parents, so I don't really know what parents are supposed to be like…"

Sonic joined both his hands and slipped them to the back of his head as he kicked back into a more comfortable position against the oak tree. He closed his eyes and appeared really relaxed, but the stiffening in his shoulders told the fox otherwise.

"Go on," Sonic encouraged confidently. "Fire away."

"What were your parents like…?" the mechanic asked almost timidly.

He had to give himself a mental shake in order to remind himself that this was about Sonic, not about him. But by making it not as personal, the blue hedgehog would be more likely to divulge his story if he believed it wasn't because his friends were worried about him. He needed to believe that Tails was just curious.

Half expecting the blue blur to make some teasing comment before sprinting away, the twin-tailed fox was surprised to hear Sonic suddenly burst out laughing. "Pahahaha! M-My pa-rents…? What? Hehah! Buddy, don't scare me like that!"

"Sonic…" the genius reddened, embarrassed that his hero had laughed at his inquiry like it was the weirdest question in the world.

"It wasn't that special."

Tails shot his friend a confused look. "H-Huh?"

The hedgehog glanced at his tree companion with an amused green gaze. He turned his head away again, his focus back on the meadows that were now drying off from the rain.

"I don't remember my dad. He left when I was two. My mom died when I was four. I learnt to cope by myself ever since," his voice lowered only slightly when he said this, a light-hearted tone having been forcefully blanketed over the words to make himself sound happy.

"Then I met you, and BAM, my life story right there!" the fastest thing alive rubbed his nose cheerfully on a much lighter note, a pleased grin on his face at his amazing storytelling feats.

Tails' baby blue eyes blinked perplexedly, surprised by the quick answer, before what Sonic had said registered in his head. His eyelids drooped in sorrow. Sonic's parents had only been there for four years of the hedgehog's life—and his older brother had lived alone…until he had met Tails? The fox, being an orphan himself, realized that his hero and him had a lot more in common than he had ever dreamed to realize. But he didn't want them to be alike for this ...not… not like this.

"S-Sorry I asked…" the little brother murmured apologetically.

"Hey, no worries! You wanted to know, so there ya have it!" the hedgehog winked.

What bothered Tails the most was how the blue hedgehog could take it so brightly. Sure, his brother was known to move on without looking back—Sonic the Hedgehog wasn't meant to have regrets. But it led the fox genius to wonder—had his best friend ever regretted anything?

The death of his mother—the fact that he mentioned it at all meant that he remembered her in some way. What impact could the death of a mother have possibly had on a four year old child? Hadn't Sonic been…sad? At the moment, it just appeared like he'd forgotten all about it—or didn't care.

"You can talk to me about anything, you know that right?" the little fox asked as he turned to look at his older brother.

He wanted Sonic to explain the scars. Maybe he didn't care about his parents because they abused him? The blue hedgehog stopped chuckling for a moment, shooting Tails a sheepish look. "Look Tails, about me running off back there…"

"You felt cornered. I get it. I don't care about that," the fox assured.

Sonic opened one eye. "So you don't care about that…that _thing_?"

"Dark Super Sonic? Well, you were really scary but…who's not allowed to have negative emotions?" the genius inquired.

The hedgehog stared at his companion disbelievingly for a while. "Tails. I could have hurt you. Everyone."

"Yeah, you could have. But you didn't," Tails reasoned with an upward facing palm. "You're Sonic the Hedgehog aren't you?"

He watched in surprise as his older friend's body seized up. The twin-tailed fox was even more shocked when Sonic wrapped his arms around himself. _Aren't you?_

"Sonic?"

The blue hedgehog's voice came out low and tense. "Tails."

The fox stood up to face the hero, watching in dismay as his older brother quivered again, his eyes screwing shut like he was in pain. "Tails, why…why did you bring an emerald with you?"

The young mechanic blinked. How did Sonic know? He slowly pulled out a purple chaos emerald from his backpack filled with the forgotten chillidogs, his brows knitted together as he observed with concern his shivering brother. "I… I brought it for you so you could maybe heal your ribs... Sonic, what's wrong?"

Tails became slightly spooked by the haunted look his brother was pulling as he stared at the gem. Then, an uncharacteristic growl came from the hero.

"I… I need to get away from that thing!"

The hedgehog was getting up, but rather shakily as he pushed past a worried Tails and stumbled out of the oak's protective umbrella.

Tails tried to stop him. "Hey wait!"

But the cobalt hero had already launched himself down the hill, nothing but a blue blur. However, it stopped only a two hills away, where the fox could still distinguish a blue form collapsing. "Sonic!"

He ran after his best friend, spinning his two namesakes as fast as he could as he dashed over to his fallen hero. Said blue hedgehog was an unconscious lump of quills splayed out on the grass, where mud had been kicked up by the speed demon's crashing body.

The poor mechanic bent over and rolled him onto his back, shaking him in a panic. "Sonic? Sonic! Can you hear me?"

There was no response, only the eerily familiar darkening of Sonic's fur.

* * *

_**Cliffie muahaha! I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself ^^ Whew, this was even longer than the last one!**_

_**And for those who haven't already figured it out by now, this fic is like a mix of Sonic X and the Sonic game canon.**_

_**Much more action and actual plot start in the next chappie I promise! :D **_

_**Again if anyone want sSilver in this story or Super Fleetway Sonic please say in the reviews! **_

_**Here I go with the usual please fav, follow and review! **_

_**Thanks~**_


	4. Chapter 4: So Long, Sonic

Chapter 4: So long, Sonic

_**Hey everybody!**_

_**Thank you all for the wonderful reviews as well as the favs and follows! :D You're making this so fun to write with your input ;) Imma updating faster :)**_

_**IMPORTANT: So there's a **__**clear win with Silver**__**,**__** so he's going into the story. ;) I was hesitating because of all the confusion this would cause because of how this would screw up the timeline (like his reappearance in Sonic Generations despite having been erased from memory). I'll do my best, but everyone will have to assume that the memory erasing of Sonic 06 didn't happen and 06 Blaze is still alive. (I know I forgot to ask if anyone wanted her, but she's kind of a package deal with Silver to me).**_

_**I also have come to the same conclusion as one of my reviewers over the week about Fleetway being a little too much on top of Dark Sonic .**__** ;)**__** While Fleetway might make an appearance, his purpose in the story (as well as his personality) will be tweaked in order for it to not clash with Dark Super Sonic. (Although I have not figured out yet how I will go about doing that! XD) Sorry about this! If anyone is against that please say so in the reviews!**_

_**All things considered, here's the next chappie!**_

_**Thanks to all readers,**_

_**Enjoy**_

* * *

A red echidna sat back against the ancient stone steps of Angel Island's dais. From atop the altar the red sentry was guarding, the Master Emerald glowed its normal incandescent light that seemed to be lulling Knuckles into a peaceful sleep.

It was only when from his closed eyelids he perceived that the glow of the massive gem was shining a little too brightly that he concluded he should probably open his eyes. The guardian blinked as his purple orbs adjusted to the light, before turning around to see what was going on. At first he thought it was just the sun reappearing from behind the clouds that had disrupted his restful snoozing before the almost blinding glow of the Master Emerald hit him full on in the face.

Knuckles groaned as he made his way up the stone stairs leading up to the altar, making sure to shield his eyes from the glimmering rock with his arm. As soon as he reached the top, the emerald was indeed the cause of the entire sky being illuminated by a green light. The echidna frowned.

It was odd for the Master Emerald to glow in such a way because since their battle with the Metarex, the huge gem had shattered into pieces. Yet, from those broken parts, the rock still glowed abnormally. It was strange because in its broken state, the gem should not have enough power to keep up the radiance it was emanating.

The guardian crouched down to touch one of the green fragments. "Master Emerald? What's going on?"

He was forced to squint as the shard shined much brighter. He picked it up to examine it, looking through straining eyes at its multiple facets.

"Master Emerald, are you trying to tell me something?" he stared at it searchingly.

Knuckles felt the gem reaching out to him, trying to communicate to him something. Through one of its facades, a holographic image slowly appeared. It seemed to be a familiar blue hedgehog.

"So something's wrong with Sonic," the echidna growled.

Why was he not surprised? That moron was always getting into trouble. If the gem guardian had been notified of this by some passing stranger, he would have simply given them a dismissing nod. But if this warning about Sonic was coming from the Master Emerald, it had to be important.

"What's he gotten himself into this time?" Knuckles muttered.

After waiting silently for a while for the Master Emerald piece to communicate something to him, he stood up from his crouching position and stared at it disbelievingly. "You want me to take you to him?"

* * *

"Alright Eggman! Tell us what's going on with Sonic or you're gonna get it!" Amy brandished her giant hammer threateningly over the doctor's head.

"W-Wait! I'll tell you everything I know, I promise!" the fat man recoiled in his chair with a panicky voice.

Shadow stood with his arms crossed at the back of the room near the door, his eyes closed. The red and black hedgehog hadn't expected to find Eggman this easily. Dark Super Sonic had destroyed most of the bloated doctor's base, which was nothing more than charred rubble that had all been reduced to ground zero—the mad scientist should have left to another hideout.

But by some coincidental twist of fate, out of the entire base, only Eggman's main computer room had been spared. Shadow had chaos controlled everyone there, expecting to find nothing but debris, but perhaps a sort of lead to the fat man's whereabouts.

However, they had found the mad scientist amongst a sea of control panels and super computers in the part of building that had not been reduced to blackened metal. Eggman had been caught unawares and had at first refused to tell them anything, sending whatever meagre badnik troops to attack the intruders.

Badnik carcasses were scattered about the room, and Rouge and Shadow hadn't lifted a finger.

"You better! Or else I'll hurt you like you hurt my Sonic!" Amy yelled while preparing to swing her mallet. "And I won't forgive you for taking me captive either!"

"I-I'm sorry! Just please don't hurt me!"

Shadow opened his closed eyes. "That's enough Amy."

"Yeah, I think he got the message," Rouge stepped out of the shadows of one of the giant computers looming over the dark room, the little smirk on her face a tell-tale sign that she had sat back to watch Amy threaten Eggman for a good few minutes.

"R-Right! I'll tell you what you want to know, just don't let her swing that thing!" Eggman pleaded with interlocked hands.

The pink hedgehog blinked, remembering that the point was not to send the bloated idiot to the hospital but to retrieve information. Amy's hammer disappeared and she swung her head away sharply, crossing her arms. "Hm! You're lucky this time!"

Rouge smiled with her usual lip-stick coated grin. She slowly ambled her way towards the doctor, catwalking across the room to place a gloved hand on the back of the fat man's swivelling chair. "Well Eggy… If you're _so_ willing to help us out, why don't you start with what we all saw in your base three days ago?"

The mad scientist's moustache practically drooped as he frowned, grumbling, "The base which that blue pest destroyed apart from this room."

"Tell us about Dark Super Sonic," Amy demanded loudly, her hands on her hips.

"What _about_ that lily-livered rodent?" Eggman growled, his finger tapping the arm of his seat. "Don't tell me you've never seen that form before."

Amy hesitated, her eyelids drooping in shame. "I…"

"So you _have_ seen him like that before," Rouge said, a curled finger to her smirking lips, her ears perked up in interest.

"Tell us what happened, doctor," Shadow's voice sounded from the back of the room.

The doctor shot a quick glance at Amy, wishing she had suddenly lost the power to summon her mallet. Eggman crossed his legs as he sat back in his chair, his usual evil toothy grin making its appearance on his face as his glasses flashed. "If you insist…"

While the information was being literally hammered out of him, it wasn't often that the doctor held this much power—here he was, holding the knowledge that these mobians needed in order to understand his mortal enemy. Knowledge was unmistakably power, and Eggman was basking in whatever short-term satisfaction it offered before he divulged it.

So, the fat man in the red suit began telling Shadow, Amy and Rouge about the time he had encountered Dark Super Sonic on the Metarex ship after his own spacecraft had crashed. They all listened, astounded by the turn of events after Sonic had seen Chris and Cosmo captured and hurt. The story mainly confirmed Tails' theory that the dark form drew its power from Sonic's negative emotions, as well as asserted that this had not been the first time the blue hedgehog had transformed.

"So that's why he seemed a little off when he came back on the Blue Typhoon after invading Narcissus's base…" Amy murmured miserably.

As the room was filled with silence, Eggman grinned toothily again as he joined his hands together over his bloated stomach, satisfied with the despair he was causing by such a simple story. "Your furry little friend seemed pretty ashamed himself. And I can tell you this: that was only one of your 'saintly' hero's temper tantrums."

Amy's eyes creased worriedly as she shook her head in disbelief. The two others stood in silence. While they had been on the same side as the man in the red suit in their fight in the Metarex, neither Shadow nor Rouge had arrived in time to witness Dark Super Sonic.

Eggman went on, his voice filled with self-loving arrogance. "While I can't say I've witnessed them all in person, there are top secret security files I hacked into a long time ago with my ingenious mind that addressed such transformations in the past before even I, the great Dr. Eggman ever met that blue pest."

The pink girl's eyes widened. "W-What? Secret files? What are you talking about? How do you know about all this?"

"I've studied that filthy rodent all his life. Don't you think I would want to know more about my enemy in order to defeat him?" the fat scientist grinned.

"Well apparently none of what you found worked considering that hedgehog is still alive," Shadow deadpanned.

Dr. Eggman sweatdropped before his expression twisted in annoyance. "No, I simply didn't find anything that was worth tampering with! Anything from the rodent's past I could have used wasn't worth an enraged dark super form trying to kill me."

For once, that didn't seem like a half-bad idea on behalf of the mad scientist, and the trio reluctantly agreed. Any emotion Eggman could have felt was hidden behind his glasses as they glinted knowingly. "I've seen what that thing can do. I have yet to build a robot that is able to withstand that kind of hatred."

The sudden sombre tone the doctor had taken surprised all three of them as they stared at Eggman incredulously. Their nemesis had just admitted to being powerless against something related to Sonic. Which could mean only one thing—the files the scientist had discovered contained very intimidating information about the Sonic the Hedgehog.

"Did you still have those files…?" Amy asked in an uncharacteriscally small voice.

"I can't show you the real files I've discovered, they were burned as soon as I hacked into the database," Eggman grunted. "I only managed to read three of the files before its system detected me and destroyed all of them."

Rouge's eyes narrowed. Whatever it was that the fat man had found, whoever had been responsible for creating the files did not want them to be discovered.

Shadow closed his eyes and shook his head. He was still finding it hard to believe that that nauseatingly happy hedgehog was anything but possibly dangerous to Mobius. Then again, the blue joker's cheesy puns could very well endanger everyone's health.

"So how can you say you've seen them?" the red and black hedgehog inquired, scowling.

The scientist grinned again, tapping his temple with his finger. "What wasn't deleted has all been recorded inside my genius mind."

"What… do you remember from what you saw?" Amy whispered.

"Well for starters, 'Sonic' isn't that pesky rodent's real name."

"Wh-what?" the pink girl gasped.

The doctor stroked his moustache, raising a brow. "Do you really think his parents knew he was fast before he was born? Unlikely. Although I couldn't care less what his real name is."

Rouge adjusted her gloves uninterestedly. "Anything else?"

The fat man swivelled around in his chair, turning to the huge computers at his command. He began typing up something on the massive keyboard. "Let me give you pea-brains a history lesson."

Rouge rolled her eyes. "This might take a while."

Ignoring her, Eggman began talking as he brought up on the massive computer a series of geographical pictures to illustrate his explanations. "Several millennia ago, Mobius suffered a cataclysmic explosion of chaos energy. The force of the energy split the single continent into thousands of fragmented countries and islands to form the Mobius we know today. While it didn't harm any of the surviving Mobians physically, some of their offspring began developing uncanny mutations such as strange fur colouring and special abilities. Take Amy's fur for example."

Said pink hedgehog looked down at her pink coloured body, blinking as she twirled her finger in her rosy hair. She thought about Tails' twin tails, and Sonic's blue fur. The mystery shrouding the chaos emerald was known to practically no one—this information must have been very hard to acquire. Even though she didn't trust Eggman very much, this story sounded plausible. But what surprised her the most was to hear that hedgehogs had never always been pink? That was strange.

"It is believed that that explosion of chaos energy was the first time the chaos emeralds came into existence—hence the distortion it exerted on Mobius's reality and space—and its inhabitants," Eggman gestured to the air around him, before contently resting his hands back on his rounded belly again.

Shadow had been listening intently although he had no idea what any of this had to do with Sonic—he had never heard about the history of the planet he had adopted.

"Apparently, a secluded island located west from South Island and north from Westside Island was known to be furthest from the epicentre of the chaos energy eruption. The inhabitants that lived there suffered the least from the blast. That isle was known as Christmas Island," Eggman went on.

"So while on large islands the mutations became a matter of norm as the years went by since the explosion, smaller islands like Christmas Island remained negative about the very rare mutations that occurred in only a few mobians."

The long pause from the doctor signified he had ended his history teacher charade. Everyone frowned as they though upon the data that had been revealed to them.

"So that's how all of you have such strange fur colours—up in the Ark, Professor Gerald always showed me creatures with much darker shades…" Shadow muttered while Amy and Rouge both sweatdropped.

It wasn't like Shadow was any better with his red-streaked black quills. Professor Gerald came from Earth, where the animals there were very different from the mobians here—this justified the ultimate lifeform's confusion.

Amy blinked, suddenly realizing something.

"That must be how Sonic got his speed…!" the pink girl piped up. "Because of what you said happened several millenia ago!"

"Indeed," the doctor grumbled. "Sonic was born gifted from the very beginning thanks to that chaos energy from years ago."

The ultimate lifeform blinked in disbelief. He had always wondered how a living creature could generate such velocity without being either scientifically created or influenced by chaos energy—the latter suggestion having been proven right only seconds ago.

While Shadow couldn't say he had been 'born' like everybody else, he felt a strange twinge of sympathy (although he would never admit it) for the blue hedgehog—he knew more than anyone else how it felt like to be born with powers beyond his control.

"While all this history about Mobius and those beautiful chaos emeralds is all _very_ interesting," Rouge shrugged, "what does this have to do with Sonic in particular?"

Eggman stroked his moustache. "Sonic was born on Christmas Island."

Amy gasped while the jewel thief put a curled finger to mouth again as they put the puzzles together. Shadow blinked in surprise as this bit of information was revealed to him.

"Now you're talking," the white bat smiled as her interest was piqued again.

The red and black hedgehog couldn't suppress a slight shiver. While he had been Maria and Gerald's favourite, he could not say the same thing about the rest of the scientists aboard the Ark.

Shadow could imagine what kind of torment a young gifted Sonic must have been put through by the 'normal' inhabitants of the island…

He stood quietly, finally intrigued by this revelation about his rival. The blue cretin had never spoken a word about his origins, and it had seemed he had fully intended to never divulge his story to any of them. Shadow allowed himself a small wry smile—he had to give the idiot some credit—his cocky mask had hid any trace of his past very well.

"So I suggest you take your furry hides to look for this Christmas Island and get out of my sight," Eggman grunted while making a shooing motion. "Perhaps you will find more clues about that filthy blue rat there."

* * *

"Let go…"

Tails stumbled forwards. They were almost there. They had been walking for some time.

"… Let me go…"

The mechanic ignored his voice, half dragging, half carrying a semi-conscious Sonic on his back. The genius's eyes tightened. No. Not Sonic. He could feel the dark energy radiating off of his brother, his peach coloured arms swinging limply over Tails' shoulders having become a more sinister darker shade of blue.

The hero's quills were still in their usual swept back style, and his half-lidded eyes were still green—but the smoky aura surrounding the hedgehog was enough to make anyone tremble.

Tails pressed forwards, anxious to get someone to help his passed out brother before it got worse. While he appeared determinedly calm, the young genius's mind was racing. Sonic's darkening fur was unmistakable—he…his brother was going to turn into…that…Dark Super Sonic. He had to do something fast!

But what could have warranted such a transformation? His best pal had only been near one chaos emerald, and his friends weren't in any danger. Had that one chaos emerald been the cause of it? Was that why the fastest thing alive had left in such a hurry in an attempt to escape it?

"Tails…" Sonic's eyes drooped as he fought unconsciousness.

"Hold on Sonic, I'll save you," the mechanic reassured him anxiously.

He had never seen his hero look so…helpless. He readjusted his grip on the blue hedgehog; his brother's dead weight was heavy for the small yellow fox. He didn't dare look back at the passed out guy—he knew he would only be met by those haunting empty eyes.

"…sorry…" the blue blur mumbled in his half-conscious state. "I should… have told you."

Tails only listened with a grim silence. Sonic had been talking deliriously like this for some time now. Saying random…scary things.

"…h-hurts…to just see…her go like that…"

"She didn't…die," Sonic closed his blank eyes, "…still…hurts me."

"…wish I didn't exist."

How… How could he say that? The mechanic almost fell as he heard all these things his long-time hero was saying. The fox kit felt tears finally prick his eyes. Almost there. They'd almost reached Vanilla's house.

"I…**hate **them."

The eight year old let out a small gasp as he gritted his teeth. He… had never heard Sonic say that. Tails' tears were rolling down his muzzle. What _was _he saying? Had everything the young adopted fox known about his older brother been a lie? Everything the hero of Mobius had made him believe in?

"Oh Chaos," the eight-year old suppressed a sob.

* * *

The forest floor was peaceful, brimming in its lush green splendour as the daybreak sun hit the blades of grass and trees, making the morning dew on the leaves shine like diamonds. But these moments in Sonic's world never lasted forever.

"Sweet Iiiibliiiiiiis!" a voice screamed as a huge blue vortex opened in the sky, throwing up two specks that plummeted to the ground below.

Singing flickies screeched in alarm and scattered from the forest floor and trees as the two figures hurtled towards the ground. The silver hedgehog didn't have the time to use the telekinesis he was known for before he face-planted onto the ground, kicking up a large amount of dust. His purple partner thankfully landed with a little more grace—after all, cats always landed on their feet.

Blaze the Cat stood up from her crouching position and paced a few steps to observe where they had landed, not in the least bit phased by their means of transport. Then her yellow eyes returned to stare with a flicker of impatience at her hobbling partner. Silver the Hedgehog stumbled upwards from his fall, holding his head and shaking it dizzily. "O-Ow… Wh-Where are we Blaze?"

The purple cat silently examined where they were, the lush greenery a stark comparison to their world 200 years into the future.

"I suspect the chaos emeralds from our timeline chaos controlled us here," Blaze replied. "Judging by this planet's life, we must be near or in Sonic's time."

"There's only one way to find out," Silver said determinedly while still rubbing his head.

The cat nodded, thinking. "Still… It's strange for the chaos emeralds to perform chaos control by themselves… It's never happened before."

"How are we going to get back home? The chaos emeralds from our world are gone!" the silver hedgehog remarked while looking searchingly for them from side to side.

Blaze closed her eyes, crossing her arms. "The chaos emeralds exist across all timelines. It would be dangerous for two sets of them to be in the same timeline. Our chaos emeralds cannot follow us into the past. It could cause devastating consequences."

"So we must go looking for the chaos emeralds in this world!" Silver concluded, closing his hands into fists and giving her a big nod of understanding.

"Yes," the purple fire-user started walking out of the forest. "Let's go, Silver."

_Why are the chaos emeralds acting so strange?_

* * *

Sonic was walking across a festival where rollercoaster rides and frying delicious hot food was being cooked in the stands set up there. He smiled as he saw everyone playing and laughing, with children running around chasing each other, taking turns in playing Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends, and the unlucky one who had to play the infamous Dr. Eggman.

The festival was being held in his honour apparently. While he wasn't really the type to indulge on his popularity, he did like to gloat over a victory against the fat Egghead and enjoy a good party.

He smirked to himself as he wiped his nose with a finger, walking across the carnival where clowns cartwheeled and people yelled in glee while on a rollercoaster. While he didn't quite remember how he got here, he didn't really mind at the moment since he could smell a promising scent of chilidogs in the breeze.

"It's Sonic!"

"Sonic!"

As he followed his nose, children began to notice he was there and squealed happily his name. Sonic put on his famous half smile as they swarmed around him, asking him for his autograph.

"Sure thing guys," he replied in a very laid back tone, used to this kind of attention and how to deal with it.

With a pen, he began signing ball caps and T-shirts.

"Sonic, do you think one day I'll be able to run as fast you if I keep working really hard?" a badger kid piped up eagerly.

While that wasn't likely, the blue blur crouched down to the kid's eye-level, giving him a wink and a trademark thumbs up. "Sure thing, pal. Don't ever give up and I'm sure you'll make it!"

He ruffled his hair as the child badger practically sparkled at the speed demon's praise. All the other children clamoured happily at this remark, pushing and pulling to get their hero's attention. The parents looked on some distance away, a pleased look on their faces—they were glad Sonic the Hedgehog was so good with children.

As the kid mobians were gradually pulled away from Sonic or satisfied by the attention that was paid to them by their hero, the fastest thing alive was finally left alone. He let out a sigh of relief, but it was only then that this was interrupted by a child crying.

The blue blur looked around concernedly, before finally noticing a small hedgehog facing away from him, his face in his hands as his body wracking another sob. Without a moment's hesitation, the hero zipped over to the child, putting a hand on his shoulder while crouching down again.

"Hey buddy… No tears…" Sonic said gently. "What's up?"

The dark blue furred hedgehog's breathing hitched. "You…You f-forgot about me… W-Why didn't you talk to m-me?"

Sonic blinked. "Sorry about that pal. Of course I didn't forget you! Here, you want me to sign something?"

"D-Don't you…" the little hedgehog finally turned towards him, deadly emerald green eyes staring back at him, "…recognize me?!"

* * *

Knuckles placed the fragment of the Master Emerald on Sonic's bedside table, and turned to look at the bed-ridden speedster. The dark aura was dissipating from around the hedgehog, and the echidna noticed that the blue blur's grip on the bed sheets noticeably relaxed. It was strange. He had never seen Sonic look so…vulnerable.

He turned towards Tails with grim look on his face.

It was the morning after he had found a crying Tails at Vanilla's house, and to say he was angry at the fastest thing alive was an understatement. He had heard the entire story from the twin-tailed fox. How dare that idiot make his best friend worry like that? The fox was still a child despite appearing to be much more mature than that the moron half the time. While the hedgehog was allowed a moment of weakness, it was his responsibility as a hero to choose the right time when to break down. And that was definitely not in front of an eight year old kid.

Knuckles exchanged glances with everyone else in the room. "The Master Emerald has the power to control the chaos emeralds—it was created in order to nullify their powers due to frequent misuse. The Master Emerald shard will help suppress the chaos emerald's negative energy in Sonic. But with just the Master Emerald in fragments, the results are only temporary."

Tails and Amy both looked down at their feet in worry.

Everyone had returned from Eggman's base and gathered together in Sonic's room. They had all had a rough night exchanging information about what they'd discovered about Sonic, and everyone was respectively stunned.

Not to mention the amount of shock at Silver and Blaze's arrival this morning as well. After a strange and mysterious explanation on the purple cat's behalf, everyone had decided that the chaos emeralds strange activity was inextricably linked back to Sonic.

"I have a bad feeling this has all to do with something Sonic hasn't been telling us about the chaos emeralds," Silver stated. "Tails said he seemed to be afraid of them!"

"How are we going to help him?" Amy's eyelids drooped in concern for her darling.

"The only way we're going to find out isn't by asking him anymore," Tails shook his head resignedly. "He wouldn't tell me."

"So we should go see for ourselves?" Rouge put her gloved hands on her hips, an amused smile making its way across her lips.

"Shadow… Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Silver glanced at the ultimate lifeform.

The red and black hedgehog uncrossed his arms, nodding. "We'll use chaos control to go back in time."

He pulled his green chaos emerald out of his quills, and Silver went to pick up the grey emerald from the stash of gems taken from Eggman.

"Hold on guys," Tails said uneasily. "Wouldn't we be prying into something private?"

"It may be private, but it's become hard to ignore," Knuckles reasoned firmly. "That guy's in trouble, the Master Emerald told me so."

"Seems like someone's taking orders from a rock, Knucky," Rouge teased.

The echidna growled. "Shut up, you dumb bat."

"Besides Tails, we need to look into Sonic's past to find out what's wrong with him!" Amy argued. "I just know the answers are there, my lover's sense is tingling!"

"R-Right," the fox kit sweatdropped along with everyone else.

"Oh, and you can use the emeralds once this is all over," the red guardian promised Silver and Blaze.

The pair from the future nodded gratefully.

"Alright, Silver, Shadow?"

The two hedgehogs held up each of their chaos emeralds before holding them closed to each other. "Chaos…Control!"

And on cue, the blue vortex opened up behind them. Without a word, Tails, Amy, Knuckles and Silver jumped into the time loop. Rouge, Shadow and Blaze stayed behind.

"I can't help but feel like we were all gathered here…on purpose…" Blaze murmured before she turned and leaped into the vortex.

"She's got a point you know," the white bat said, looking away from the portal.

"Aren't you coming?" Shadow asked. "You seemed so interested before."

"There's something more entertaining I wanna to investigate," the jewel thief purred, taking a few steps back. "Besides, I'll need to tell that rabbit girl and her mother to look after Sonic while you guys are away."

The ultimate lifeform shared a glance with her before he turned away too. "I see."

With that, he jumped into the gloom.

"_So. The stage is set."_

Sonic moved restlessly in his sleep.

* * *

_**Done~!**_

_**Finally, I've gotten to the actual base of the plot! Hurray!**_

_**So you might have noticed I used the chaos controlling method of 06 to travel back in time to visit Sonic's past.**_

_**See ya next time~!**_

_**Please review, fav and follow!**_

_**Thanks :)**_


	5. Chapter 5: I Child Called Maurice

Chapter 5: A Child Called Maurice

_**Hey guys!**_

_**So pleased with the many positive reviews, thanks so much for the favs and follows! I'm really getting thrilled with this story with such enthusiastic feedback! I will try my best! :D**_

_**I apologize for the backstory mix up with Silver and Blaze, as after Sonic 06 both stories always confused me. XD But I've always pictured Silver in an apocalyptic world (which distinguishes him as a character), so this won't change, as well as Blaze who I think works nicely with Silver (Princess Blaze would be a lone character without Marine, and I don't want the racoon in it because I find her annoying).**_

_**Anyway, sit back and hope you enjoy the story~!**_

* * *

"Mommy…"

She kissed him on his forehead before tucking his head back under her chin. Her fur tickled his nose as he slept snuggly against her. She giggled as he sneezed, and uncurled from her protective ball of quills to get a tissue.

"Mommy… when do you think I'll be able to play outside?" the young hedgehog's small voice came.

She returned from the dresser with a tissue box in her hand, a soft smile on her lips as she sat back on the bed again. "Sweetheart, you know you're too young to play outside with the others."

"But they're the same age as me, mommy," the small hedgehog protested.

She sighed, handing him a tissue. He blew his nose, before he piped up rather loudly in his young voice, "I could all beat them in a race. Maybe then they'll stop throwing rocks at our house, mommy!"

His mother's gentle face became tenser as she stroked her son's cheek, tucking him back into bed again. "…Maurice?"

"Yes mommy?" the child looked up at her with bright emerald green eyes and a hopeful half smile on his face.

"You need to promise me something," she murmured softly to him.

"What mommy? I'll promise you anything!"

"Promise me you won't use your speed in front of anyone except me."

The little hedgehog blinked uncomprehendingly at her. "But mommy, speed is cool. Maybe then the other kids will like me! And if they tried to hurt you I could fight them—don't be scared, I'd protect you!"

She made a pained smile as he grinned cutely at her. He was so innocent, so precious. Perhaps she really had kept him in the house for too long—but she had no other choice. She scratched behind Maurice's ear, lulling the pup into a comforting sleep. "Honey, that's very sweet of you. But your speed must be used wisely—it's not there to fight and hurt other people. Promise me you won't use that power to hurt people."

Maurice yawned as his eyelids drooped sleepily. "I promise mommy."

She let out a breath, turning to look at the moon outside the window that shone through the curtains.

"Mommy?" Maurice whispered under the sheets. "Now that I promised, can I go outside?"

Her face almost melted into a soft smile again at her son's persistence. She sighed softly again.

"Maybe next year Maurice."

_Maybe next year _

_Maybe next year _

_Maybe…next…year_

_M….e nex… y_

The house lit up in flames and the words died beneath the roaring of the blazes that swallowed him whole.

Sonic screamed at the top of his lungs as he woke up writhing on a bed, his hands gripping the sheets as he jolted awake from the dream. With a crazed tumble, he fell off the side of the bed and smacked his face against the wooden flooring. "Ow."

"…onic?" a muffled voice came distantly.

The fastest thing alive shifted, noticing his limbs were in a tangle with his bed sheets. The awakened blue hedgehog blinked dizzily, trying to calm his breathing before the person arrived.

From the light coming from outside the window, Sonic judged it was the afternoon. The last time he had had his eyes open, it had been night. He let out a deep breath as he realized he was back in Vanilla and Cream's house. He was safe. There wasn't any…

Sonic screwed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. "Oh chaos…"

He pushed his head back under the covers, remaining on the floor where he had fallen.

"…onic?" the voice came again.

The sound was still too muffled to tell who it was. Still… the blue teen could not afford to have anyone worrying about him. He was meant to be worried about them after all. He was the hero.

The blue hedgehog blinked hard. _Okay, Sonic the Hedgehog. You have three seconds to get it together. _

He thought about the dream again. He growled.

_One. _

He blew out a long breath. Then he thought about Tails, and how he had pretty much fainted in front of the poor guy.

_Two. _

His mind wondered over to everyone else—had they seem him in such a pathetic state? He couldn't let them worry.

_Three._

Pulling on his trademark smile, he attempted to disentangle himself out of his bed covers while the door to his room opened. Sonic had to narrow his eyes against the light that pierced out the cracked open doorway. It was probably Tails. The blue blur peeked his head out from under the covers and smiled cheerfully. "Hey buddy!"

But it was Vanilla standing in the entrance. "Sonic, dear?"

His face faltered slightly as he did not recognize his little brother. Her gentle face and honey eyes met his slightly frazzled ones; the mother rabbit not helping the speedster forget his dream about his own mother.

The fastest thing alive blinked in realization. "I-It's you…

He paused slightly, before adding. "Sorry."

Vanilla's eyes glowed kindly. "That's alright dear. Tails couldn't be here, so I'm looking after you instead."

The blue blur stared confusedly at his hands, finding them twitching nervously as he finished untangling himself from his bed covers.

"Yeah, sorry about that, I thought you were him…" Sonic rubbed the back of his head, trying to calm his grated nerves.

"Are you alright, dear? You look slightly pale."

The truth was, while the mother rabbit was a lovely person, Sonic did not enjoy being around her. In fact, while many adults had always been loving and kind as far as he'd seen, he'd never hang around them for very long. A certain tenseness overcame his limbs, and he always had to try and quell a surge of mistrust when they expressed concern for him.

"I'm okay," Sonic offered her a grin, carrying the rumpled covers from the floor back on the bed out of respect.

Whenever he was around adults, which included Vanilla, he didn't know how to feel—while the feeling in his chest wasn't comforting, it wasn't painful either. It was nothing but a dull throb Sonic had learnt to ignore. And since adults weren't much of a part of his life anyway, (apart from Dr. Eggman who he had grown quite used to) Sonic never paid much attention to it. Perhaps, unconsciously, the hedgehog had surrounded himself with mobians his age.

But that would be weird wouldn't it?

"Let me check your temperature, Tails said you were quite feverish," Vanilla strode over to him, attempting to put a delicate gloved hand on his forehead.

Alarm bells in Sonic's head rang. Out of reflex, he ducked away from it, but brushed it away from him gently enough to seem like he was his usual self.

"I'm fine Vanilla, no worries," the speed demon assured her with another beam as he held his hands in front of him, backing away from her slightly. "You said er… Tails was busy? What's he up to?"

The honey-coloured rabbit cocked her head to the side. "I'm unsure what exactly Rouge was talking about, but Tails, Knuckles and some others have gone to find something to help you."

"Wait, Knucklehead?" he frowned confusedly. "Why's he here?"

Vanilla seemed to have noticed the distance the hedgehog had imposed between them—but she remained where she was. She gestured towards the gleaming Master Emerald fragment Sonic hadn't noticed until now on his bed side. "He brought over that piece of the Master Emerald to aid you to revert back to your old self, he told us."

Sonic stared at the shard expressionlessly, before the puzzles slowly fit together in his head. He stared at his arms and the palm of his hands, flexing them morosely. "Huh."

He lifted his head again, quirking a brow and forced another half grin. "Can you tell me where they are?"

"Rouge said they could no longer wait for you."

The speedster grinned cockily. "What? Why would they need to _wait_ for me? I'm the fastest thing alive!"

The mother shifted, sighing, almost as if tired of breaking it gently to the clueless hedgehog.

Vanilla folded her hands neatly over her long dress, her eyelids dropping knowingly over her honey eyes. "They used chaos control to go back in time to try and see how they could help you."

His trademark smile vanished—and the colour drained out of his face. "…Wait… _What_?"

The mother rabbit closed her eyes, her head bowing slightly in apology. "They've gone to find out about your past, Sonic."

Every muscle bunched up in in the blue blur's entire body as this registered in his brain. How…had they even found out about anything? His eyes widened as he stared at the ground blankly. His cobalt head then ducked sharply down so his eyes were shadowed and unreadable, and his clenched fists shook at his sides.

"I…see."

And without another word, Sonic lurched forwards and blasted out of the house. Vanilla stared after the ray of blue the glum hero left behind, her head bent and eyes shut so that she appeared to be sympathizing deeply with the hedgehog.

"Perhaps you are still a child deep down after all."

* * *

It had been raining.

Maurice opened the door as quietly as he could, wincing as it creaked a little—ruining his stealthy entrance into his mother's home. He wiped his battered grey sneakers on the doormat, vainly trying to mop up his muddied body with his abandoned coat on the peg in the wall.

The child hedgehog then continued to creep into the house, albeit not very gracefully, as he attempted to cover up the limp in his step as he made it through the hallway. While his tiptoeing was cautiously quiet, his injuries made his usual springing step clumsy and heavy-footed.

All he had to do was get past the living room and up the stairs. It was just a little further…

"Maurice?"

Um.

"Y-Yes mommy?" the four year old asked, hating the way his voice wavered slightly.

"How was your day? Did you make some new friends?" his mother's voice sounded distantly from the living room as the child sneaked past and up the stairs.

"Yes," he lied in a happy tone. "I didn't use my speed today."

"…Maurice? Won't you give mommy a kiss? She hasn't seen you all day, you know mommy can't go outside," her gentle voice came again after a contented pause.

_That's right_. His mother had always been afraid to go outside ever since his father had left them two years ago. Ever since, she had been afraid to leave the house, for fear that something might happen to her. Such an intense fear had caused them to rely on canned reserves that the child had quickly grown bored of, rather than go to the supermarket to buy proper food.

Because of this fear, the young pup had been trapped along with her in that claustrophobically dull house, the exciting adventures of the world but a dream that appeared in only the comic books that the kid had read for the umpteenth time.

The hedgehog had wanted to hear the sound of the birds, to taste real food, to feel the breeze passing through his fur and smell the flowers that appeared so pretty yet that the youngster could never pick from his window.

All these senses, according to the many books the pup had uninterestedly occupied himself with, was what made you feel alive.

It had taken two years for Maurice to convince his mother to finally let him explore the outside world. It had only been a week since his eyes had been graced by the most astonishing sights of nature the young blue blur had immediately fallen in love with.

Seeing something from a window, from a distance, was nothing compared to climbing the trees and feeling the soft bark against his hands. He had even tasted the most delicious food across Christmas Island, even though people treated him differently. He had discovered chillidogs.

But what he loved the most was the feeling of the wind in his quills when he went running. While Maurice had run in the house before, the hallways had been way too small for the child to reach the kind of speed he was able to in the forests he tore across now.

The outdoors sang of the kind of freedom that the hedgehog had always sought for.

Maurice had always wanted to be free.

But that was difficult when the person you loved the most was attached to one location, too frightened to step out into the open. The little speedster had never quite understood why his mother acted this way—but he didn't dare ask. It seemed to be a secret far too fear-inducing for the blue child to come to terms with.

The little blue hedgehog winced at his mother's words, one leg raised to leap up the stairs and never be seen again. He put his foot back down, turning rigidly towards the living room. He couldn't let her see him like this. She would revoke whatever freedom Maurice had desperately sought for years.

"Mommy, I have to go take a shower…"

She shifted in her armchair, and he could imagine her frowning at his statement. It was unusual for her child to go against her word. The blue hedgehog heard her get up, and a wave of terror roared ablaze in his chest. He charged up the stairs, ignoring her questioning calls and slammed the door of the bathroom.

With an extreme sense of urgency as he heard his mother's worried voice coming up the steps, he stared in the mirror as he attempted to clean himself up before she could see anything.

But as he frantically threw a towel over his form to conceal his injured body, ashamed, his alarmed parent opened the door and whimpered as she peeked under the cloth at her son.

He was covered in cuts and stark purple bruises, like he had been beaten to the ground multiple times.

* * *

"You…you think they can see us?" Tails whispered as they were all hidden behind a couple of bushes.

"No… They would have stood there gawping if they saw a portal appearing out of nowhere with a couple of mobians hopping out of it," Knuckles muttered as he slowly stood up, his eyes never leaving the playing children.

They were all in a grassy field of wheat that rippled in unison along the passing breeze. The wheat rustled and whispered as the blowing air weaved past the blades of grass and past Sonic's friends, as if hospitably greeting them. The wind was gentle and far from hostile.

Tails closed his eyes to welcome it, the sudden gush of air reminding him of the wind kicked up by a certain blue hedgehog every time he ran by. Maybe that was it—a land of the Wind.

It almost seemed like the most ethereal environment imaginable, the idyllic dwelling of childhood.

"Wh…Where are we?" Amy stuttered in awe as she picked leaves out of her hair, shooting an irritable glance at the yellow fox for having pushed her into the bushes when he had fallen over her.

Silver stood up dizzily from his usual sprawled position after leaping out of the portal, not realizing it had opened about ten meters off the ground. Just like everyone else. Most were thankful the children couldn't see them—they had all landed in a not very nimble pile of fur thrown on top of the other.

Only Blaze and Shadow had escaped the trial, their cautious natures having suspected something like this to happen.

"Beats me," Tails scratched his head as he looked around.

"The chaos emeralds should have brought us somewhere meaningful to our quest," Blaze murmured, crossing her arms. "They are able to sense the thoughts of the controller after all."

"We've been sent back by the chaos emeralds into Sonic's past—they'll have chaos controlled us close to Sonic. He must be around here somewhere," Silver agreed.

Amy hands flew to her blushing cheeks as she jumped up and down like a giddy school girl, "Ooh~! My darling Sonic's past! He's so mysterious! Maybe what we'll see here can finally explain why he'd so afraid to marry me!"

The twin-tailed yellow fox sweatdropped. "Amy… You know Sonic isn't the kind of guy who likes to be tied down to one place. He likes his freedom."

…Which went on completely ignored by the swooning pink hedgehog as she continued monologuing about what kind of children they would have together.

Said girl finally recovered from her fangirl moment, placing a hand on her hip while the other shaded her eyes to stare off into the distance at her surroundings. "Speaking of children... What's really weird is that those kids over there haven't seemed to notice us even though we're in plain sight. And we _were_ pretty noisy."

"I couldn't care less about a couple of children," Shadow grunted. "Let's find what we came here for."

"Guys…" Blaze spoke up, despite keeping her voice a quiet murmur as she lowered her head and closed her yellow eyes, "No matter what we see here… I think it would be wise not to intervene like we have in the past. No matter how bad it gets, if one of us were to interfere with Sonic's past, it could cause a time paradox."

"You're making me really nervous to meet Sonic now Blaze," Tails muttered sheepishly as he glanced sideways at the ground.

The purple cat's eyelids lowered in sympathy. "Sorry Tails. I thought it would be best to give everyone a fair warning."

"She's right," Silver acknowledged. "It's probably best if we just watch what happens… It'd be too dangerous to change anything in his past—it might affect the Sonic we know today."

Everyone nodded in agreement, before the twin-tailed fox noticed the stillness in the red echidna besides him—he didn't seem to be participating in the conversation at all.

"What's that?" Knuckles suddenly growled in a suspicious voice.

"Eh?" everyone turned to realize the Master Emerald sentinel hadn't stopped glaring at the children since they'd arrived here. "What's wrong?"

"I knew there was something fishy about them," the red guardian was radiating a startling anger as he marched towards the playing kids across the other side of the field.

Amy and Tails exchanged a puzzled glance before they ran after their friend. "Knuckles, wait up!"

Everyone else reluctantly followed the impulsive echidna—and as they neared the children, everyone gradually realized that while the kids had indeed been "playing", it wasn't a pretty sight. They were all laughing at something cowering against the trunk of a tree, a figure so much smaller and meeker than the other jeering children that the form had been hard to notice by the time-travelling mobians.

"You can't play with us, you blue freak!" a bird boy yelled at the small bundle of fur.

The beaten up form of the tiny child had his hands over his face and was trembling like there was no tomorrow. His fur was a peculiar cobalt blue.

Another child delivered another kick into what revealed itself to be the hedgehog's side, and with a pained whimper, the young child fell face first into the dirt. The other kids squealed delightedly at the power they held in their hands, and began forming a tight circle around their helpless prey.

"Oh no, you don't!" Knuckles ground out as he charged towards them.

But before he could take another step, Shadow had zipped in front of him, holding him back with an arm. "Wait…"

Tails squinted at the shivering little blue hedgehog. "I-Isn't that…"

Amy's eyes welled up with tears. "S-Sonic…?"

They all stared uncomprehendingly at their hero in his child form, his hands vainly shielding himself with his head lowered, tear drops forming at the edge of his closed eyes.

"This…This must be Christmas Island…" the fox whispered in realization.

The attackers outnumbered Sonic by many—there were seven of them… and their young hero didn't seem to be doing anything… Why wasn't he fighting back?

They threw him onto his hands in knees, where he remained crouched like a cornered animal, his head bowed.

"Look at it! It's too dangerous to be around us…" a little cat girl sneered.

"They say those quills of his can cut through metal!"

"He's just scum! A freak of nature! No one should be allowed to do that!"

The hedgehog said nothing. Where was the wit? Where was their famous hero's spark?

"And did you see how it runs? It's a demon!"

The blue blur was silent. It was as if this Sonic had had the very life sucked out of him. Or perhaps put on mute.

"And you know what happens to demons?" one of the children laughed.

"They're hunted!"

"Killed!"

"Eaten!"

The bird child smiled. "Survival of the fittest."

And with that, the young Sonic was dealt a powerful blow to the face. The cobalt pup's head snapped back and he crumpled.

It dawned on the horrified group that Sonic had been silent not because he was afraid—he was being stubborn. He lifted his head, his eyes glaring at his persecutors.

"Sonic, no!" Amy screamed in fury and fear as she lunged to protect her lifetime crush from his bullies.

But before she could swing her hammer at the kids, Shadow tackled her to the side and pinned her to ground. She struggled, kicked and insulted the ultimate lifeform with all her might, but the red and black hedgehog didn't budge one bit, his eyes tightening at what he had just witnessed.

If the hedgehog couldn't fight, why wasn't Sonic running away?

Knuckles was growling himself, mentally nailing himself to the ground with all the strength he had and was now holding a shaking Tails' wrist, the guardian's grip the only thing keeping the fox kit from leaping in to defend his older brother.

Blaze had her head turned away sharply from the scene, her hand holding her opposite wrist while Silver stood helplessly still as the beating up took place in front of him. While everyone knew they had forbidden themselves to interfere, they were all seriously regretting that decision.

"Use your speed and run, ya coward!" the cat girl snarled.

"They…they really can't see us…" Silver muttered. "It's like we don't exist."

"That's why he runs so quick; cause he's so used to running back as fast as he can to his mommy!" a piglet boy erupted into triumphant laughter as he poked at the beaten cobalt pup with a stick.

Still, Sonic didn't say a word. He was shakily rolling back on to his front, his skinny arms quaking as he pushed himself off the ground in effort, bringing his legs up under him to resume his all fours position. His eyes were shadowed—he was unreachable to his friends. All that could be heard was the small speedster's quivering pained breaths as he didn't brave another look up. Sweat droplets from his forehead spotted the ground like tears. His hands gripped at the dirt.

"Oh, Sonic…"Amy had tears rolling down her muzzle as she remained on her knees, her hands covering her face.

Shadow had released her, and was now still crouching beside the downed pink girl to watch the scene unfold.

"Imagine the disappointment. Aren't your parents ashamed of you? You turned out really weird looking didn't you?"

"Heheh, that's why his daddy left him!" the bird child howled in enjoyment with the rest of them.

Still, child Sonic remained mute, helplessly cradling his arm to his body like a baby and his doll. Silence seemed to be the only form of resistance he knew.

With a cry, Tails yanked his arm out of a startled echidna's grip and threw himself at the bird kid, his baby blue eyes wild with fury before anyone could stop him. But as his body made contact with the child, his body passed right through the form.

"H-Huh?" the mechanic blinked confusedly, his arms catching nothing as he fell on his cheek and two hands on the dirt with a dull thud.

He stared perplexedly at the group he had come into the past with, who only gazed back. He then shot a glance at the gang of bullies—they had gone on, not noticing Tails at all.

"This is different to the chaos control me and Silver did before," Shadow crossed his arms pensively.

"It seems like this chaos control may allow us to travel back it time, but it has rendered the ability to change the past impossible," Knuckles growled.

"It's almost like…the chaos emeralds have a mind of their own…" Silver whispered in puzzlement.

The twin-tailed fox picked himself up, still not in the least bit calmed down as he sauntered back to the group, his fists shaking uncontrollably. "Th-Those bastards…"

"Tails…" the red guardian murmured sympathetically.

"H-How could they… talk to Sonic like that, Knuckles?" the young genius's eyes watered. "Sonic must be hurting!"

The echidna simply shook his head as he stared past the fox at the scene still happening in front of them. "I don't know Tails."

They had never seen their blue friend look so…defenceless. And they themselves had never felt this inadequate to protect him. With a terrible feeling of dread, it came slowly to others that all this had already happened to Sonic the Hedgehog, the person they had believed to have known for years.

They returned their attention back to their blue hero. Child Sonic's eyes were screwed shut like he wished a hole would swallow him up, his fists clenching chunks of grass as he listened to their words.

They were right.

They were all right.

Everything…his dad…his mom… it must all be because he wasn't _right_. There was something really w_rong _with him.

"Its mom's a freak too, just like it," a squirrel joined in as he crunched his own foot down on the tiny blue blur's fingers. "She's crazy. She's locked up in that house of hers all day, making cracked gadgets. She's a witch."

Another grin formed on the bird boy's face. "And you know what happens to witches?"

Sonic trembled at this remark, his entire body seizing up in sudden fear. Two of the children hauled him up onto his knees, each holding one of his arms up as kids took turns hurting him.

They all chirped in delighted unison. "Witches get _burned_."

"**NO**!" the cobalt hero finally spoke, snapping his head up, his scared emerald eyes suddenly gone livid.

A ripple went through Sonic's fur, signalling to all of the people that knew him that his quills were hardening from soft hair to razor-like blades. In an instant, blood was drawn as the spikes sliced into the skin of the children who had been holding him up, earning a shout of pain from his persecutors as they fell back onto the floor, each clutching their injured limb.

They screamed and wailed, scattering in fear at this unexpected outburst, some running away crying and sobbing.

"It's a demon!"

"A monster!"

"It almost killed us!"

Sonic just curled into a protective ball of deadly blades on his back, shivering with his hands over his ears. "N-No…"

"I-I'm not a…" he opened his eyes almost as round as the moon, before throwing his hands over his eyes again as he realized what he had done. "…demon…!"

"I-I'm just… Maurice."

It began to rain, and dirt became mud that clung to Sonic's skin like the blood on his quills of the children he had cut.

* * *

Sonic had been sitting on a street lantern, staring up at the night sky. A sombre shadow was cast over his face, which was unusual for the normally upbeat hedgehog.

"The sky looks the same. So do the stars and the moon."

It had been the first time the blue blur had been sent to Chris's world after being caught in a chaos control blast. He had arrived here, lost and confused by his predicament.

"I guess chaos control must have sent me here. I travelled through space…did I travel through time too?" he muttered to himself as he shifted his gaze at the concrete below him.

While the fastest thing alive prized some of his solitude back on Mobius, he was always the happiest when he was with his friends. He was in a different world now…

"Am I…the only one here?" Sonic's voice wavered slightly as he refrained from expressing a pained look on his face.

People were different here… they looked like they'd never seen anything like him before. If he was the only mobian here… he was a freak here. A blue, superfast, super dangerous freak. Just like on Christmas Island…

"Are all the others…gone?" he closed his eyes, trying to calm his nerves.

It was when he was alone that the hero's old memories of the past would come axe-kicking him in the head. Without his friends… he was outside of his comfort zone. What if he was stuck here forever?

_Things are different now. Even if they're not here… You're still Sonic the Hedgehog. _

Christmas Island was a thing of the past. Maurice was a thing of the past. He was Sonic.

"Well, I guess I'll find out soon enough!" he said confidently, glad to have been the one to have cheered himself up without his friends.

And as he stood on the freeway, greeted by the glaring lights of the S-Team's cars, he teetered upon that thought briefly at the back of his mind. _Who are you without them? Wasn't it only once you met your friends that you became Sonic the Hedgehog?_

* * *

"Little bud?!"

Sonic skidded to a halt in front of Tails' workshop, his emerald green eyes searching for his little brother. "H-Hey, buddy?"

He was only greeted by the hollow emptiness of the workshop and the half-finished carcass of the X-Tornado. The blue blur paused for a moment at the entrance, staring glumly down at the cement. Then he sped off again.

The speedster dashed to Amy's house, knocking on her door even though he knew nobody would answer. "Amy? A-Ames! Are you there?"

No answer.

He darted away again, nothing but a blur as he hurtled across the grassy hills. In a matter of insanely short seconds, Sonic had arrived on Angel Island, the floating piece of land having fallen into the ocean due to the shattered Master emerald pieces. "Knux…? Hey Knucklehead, are you there?"

Maybe what Vanilla had said was really true.

The blue hedgehog reached the top altar, already knowing it was going to be empty. He made out the glowing pieces of the Master Emerald, and picked up one of the gem fragments, his eyes lowering. "Knux…"

Sonic's teeth gritted, and his shaking fist gripped the shard tightly.

They had left him behind. They had departed to find out about his past, even though he didn't want them to… They had gone on some dangerous journey in time, to Sonic's past no less, without him?!

The hero angrily chucked the emerald shard back into the pile of pieces, before bunching up his fists and letting out a long, frustrating scream. It echoed across the mountains and valleys of Angel Island, and Sonic had to take deep breaths to calm himself down.

His friends… Everyone… Everything was gone…

He was rarely one to panic, but simply the thought of his friends being in a place where he was unable to protect them drove him crazy. He had to find a way to get to them… he had to save them! What if they were in trouble and he couldn't leap in and do what he did best? Didn't they trust him anymore?

Without another he was back en route again, the blue trail he left behind flickering between different shades of blue as he distanced himself from the Master Emerald shards.

A warped, dry grin stretched and glinted in the darkness.

"_Tick tock, Sonic… Tick tock."_

* * *

_**That's all folks…!**_

_**Hope you liked this one, please review and tell me what you think!:D**_

_**Please comment, fav and follow!**_

_**Thank you~ :)**_


	6. Chapter 6: The Unfree

Chapter 6: The Unfree

_**I'm so sorry for the late update! I was really busy last week, so I wasn't able to write anything! :( Welcome to the 6**__**th**__** chappie of beLIEve! :D**_

_**As usual, thank you so much for your thoughtful comments, favs and follows! :) I'm really glad people are giving me their responses for each chappie since it helps me know what kind of things people enjoy reading and what scenarios people might like seeing in the future! **_

_**So thank you, and I hope you enjoy this one ;)**_

* * *

During the first few years that Tails had come to know Sonic, it had been made very clear by his idol that the blue blur prized freedom above anything else. He had fought Eggman tooth and nail for it ever since the fox had known him, always locked in a battle against his nemesis for the chaos emeralds and the freedom of Mobius.

Over the time the mechanic had spent with Sonic the Hedgehog, he had speculated over a few things.

The speedster enjoyed the beauties of nature and the peaceful freeing effect it had on him. Every once and a while, the young genius would see the speed demon pick a few flowers to sniff here and there. It seemed strange for tough, kick ass Sonic to be so appreciative of such simple things, but it gradually became a matter of the hero's mystique that Tails liked to ponder over.

Still, the fox had never seen an individual fight so strongly for freedom before. The fastest thing alive hated staying in one place, and if he did, he fidgeted endlessly like he thought he was going to be trapped at any moment. At some point, the mechanic had wondered if the hedgehog was claustrophobic. But perhaps it was just him being impatient.

His bed was rarely used, as the blue blur always preferred sleeping outdoors if it wasn't raining—and if he did use his bed, he always left the door and the window open. Like escape routes. The fox genius had always found that highly suspect. But being involved in fights with Eggman, the god of Chaos itself and a genie here and there could do that to a person. Tails didn't blame him. He hadn't thought about it twice. His best friend's actions had always been random and whimsical. Right? But now, as he watched Sonic's past unfold before him, he couldn't help but think again.

* * *

Maurice had told her everything.

After she had demanded an explanation several times, it had taken about ten more tries before the trembling mother had managed to coax the story out of her son. She had been silent throughout the entire tale, dabbing tissue that had been dipped in disinfectant on the hedgehog's wounds as he had sat on the toilet seat.

Now, a week later, Maurice stared out of the window forlornly. He had the curtain pushed to the side, his face pressed up against the glass, trying to feel on his skin the air that had felt so pleasant to him before. There was no wind in the house. It truth, the place was actually quite stuffy. Almost stifling even. The breeze that the outside offered had allowed the little hedgehog to cool down from the summer sun—in his mother's abode, there was neither the sun, nor the wind. Just the heat.

All the windows had their curtains drawn over them, preventing any light from brightening up the house. Dark, small, and stuffy. The kid had only meant to sneak a peek past the curtain, but he had stayed there for hours.

Maurice held the green gem as high up in the air as he possibly could, vainly trying to catch a ray of sunlight so he could see it sparkle dazzlingly again. But from where he was positioned, catching any sun, or seeing anything particularly beautiful in nature, was impossible.

"Why won't you talk to me?" he spoke to it miserably.

The child still tried to get some light to bounce off the emerald, refusing to admit he might never see it glimmer again.

Ever since he'd told his mother about the bullies, the hedgehog had been forbidden to leave the house.

Being as young as he was, he knew little about the concept of slowly going crazy, or perhaps intense feelings of imprisonment. And loneliness. His mother wasn't mad at him—she had looked after his cuts and bruises—why should he feel anything but happy? Why was it that _he felt so…_

The ball of ice in his throat had nothing to do with the huge dresser moved in front of the house door to prevent him from disobeying his mother by leaving. It had nothing to do with the fact that she had also locked the door with a key for extra precaution. She had been very upset. Mommy had been really sad. Maurice didn't want her to worry about him more than she already had—still… _He felt so…_

The female hedgehog had made him promise not to go outside—but why? Couldn't she see that despite what had happened, the young blue blur loved being outside more than anything else? To explore the woodlands and go climbing the highest trees to admire the land below…didn't she know? Those other kids…it hurt…but it was nothing compared to…_to…_

He stared blankly outside, pressing a hand against the window. _He felt so… _He watched with a sombre expression a butterfly desperately trying to free itself from a spider's web. The owner of the web, however, was nowhere in sight. _Would you fly away if you could?_

"Maurice?" his mother called from the kitchen.

He could hear her move into the living room, and knew she was standing there without turning around. The four year old child just watched the butterfly grapple with its bonds. Did it really want to escape that badly? Why?

_He felt so…_

"Dinner's ready, dear," she said softly.

The small speedster turned away, glancing at her gentle features. His mother was rather thin and her eyes were constantly tired, but otherwise, many considered her beautiful. She had a usual hedgehog's brown sleek fur, but her dazzling blue eyes helped light up her thin-worn expression like twin diamonds.

"Mommy, I did all my chores today, and I'll even wash the dishes tonight…" Maurice shuffled his feet, his battered grey sneakers suddenly very interesting.

He felt his mother move towards him and crouch down, before wrapping his arms around him and pulling his head into her shoulder. "No, Maurice… I can't let you go."

_He felt…_

"W-Why are you punishing me?" he demanded in a wavering voice as his green eyes screwed shut in pain. "I'm trying to be a good boy; I won't hurt those guys again…!"

Her own eyes closed, tears clotting at the side of her locked eyelids. "I'm not trying to punish you… I just want to protect you… I told you… It's too dangerous for us to go outside!"

"But it's so boring in here… it's fun to be outside…"

"They hurt you Maurice…" she whimpered. "Mommy can't go outside to protect you, they don't understand that you're such a wonderful boy! I'm not punishing you, I just don't want you to get hurt! You are going to stay here in this house with me."

"**NO!" **Maurice finally burst out, pushing away from his mother.

She stared at him, her expression nothing but a mixture of shock and confusion at his outburst.

_He felt so __**angry.**_

"No…! No mommy!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, his whole body shaking and his innocent face twisting almost crazily. "I can't _stand _it! Staying here, in this same place, where I can't see anything! I can't do anything!"

The female hedgehog stood up from her crouched position, frowning her child. Why wasn't he able to understand? He had powers he couldn't control, and that people hated him for…!

"If you keep going outside, they might take you away…! There are bad people out there! I can't afford to lose you too! What else can I do? Nothing! This is the best for the both of us!"

"I want to run around! I want to see the world! I want to go on an adventure like the heroes!" Maurice demanded, tears beginning to well up in his eyes as he looked up at his parent.

His mother's forehead creased, her eyes flitting with anger as she seemed to be tearing up to.

"What do you want me to do?! Send you out there just so you can be beat up again?!" the brown hedgehog yelled. "You've been in the house for only a week!"

"It feels like it's been a year!" the tiny blue blur shouted, his face wrinkled in agony. "I'm not _happy_! I. Hate it. Here!"

The mother hedgehog whimpered again, bending over as her eyes shimmered with tears. "Maurice… Let me help you… I can't help you if you won't let me…!"

"You can't _help me_! All you care about is how safe I am, and if all the windows and doors are locked! You don't care mommy!" a tear ran down the blue speedster's little muzzle, his teeth gritted.

"Of course I care! I love you Maurice…!" she murmured while holding a hand to mouth, her eyes wide with hurt.

"If you loved me, you'd let me go outside!" and with that, the blue hedgehog rushed out of the living room and upstairs with the speed he was known for.

The mother sank to the floor, clutching a heart necklace hanging around her neck. It held a picture of Sonic's father.

* * *

Amy wailed. "Sonic, my darling!"

They were all standing in "Maurice's" house, still invisible to the inhabitants' of eyes, intent on making sure that the young hedgehog was alright after they had witnessed his beat up. They had also followed Tails' wrist watch in hopes of finding their means of returning home. Two chaos emeralds were their only ticket back to the present.

As Silver and Blaze had expected, the chaos emeralds that had been used back in Sonic's current time had been left behind in that period. In order to return to the present, the gang needed to find chaos emeralds from this timeline in order to return home.

They had been shocked to discover the very item they were searching for in the child speedster's possession—they had not expected the four year old Sonic to know about any emeralds at this age. It seemed that their hero's life had been intertwined with the chaos emeralds since the very beginning. Did the kid have any idea of the power it possessed? The future he would have with all seven of them? Whatever Maurice's knowledge was of the gem, they needed it in order to secure their return back home.

After following the little Sonic back home, his friends had witnessed the fight between the young hedgehog and his mother. The young fox genius had deduced that his mother probably had agoraphobia—someone who was afraid to leave the house. But why?

Tails wished he could hug Maurice and be the older brother for once... But the chaos emeralds had made sure that the fox would not be able to intervene.

It was strange to see the strong and cocky hero the fox kid looked up to look so…small and innocent. He looked quite different as well. His body was of much rounder and softer countenance that marked the body of a young child than his usual lean and wiry self that denoted repeated hardships and battles it had been put through. His eyes were different too, as well as his posture. Maurice's posture was slouched, and his eyes often dropped to the ground—Sonic's stance was the complete opposite. His back was curved and his chest was puffed up arrogantly, his green eyes with their usual bright glint in them.

Tails' eyes tightened as he thought of how miserable his idol's childhood seemed. It was similar to his own… The blue blur didn't deserve that! He could have left a thousand times over if he'd wanted to… But the speed demon had stayed because he loved his mother... How could he leave if she couldn't? He was tied down and was prevented to run because he couldn't leave her behind.

Tails began to understand why his hero fought tooth and nail for the freedom which he valued so deeply—and why he put himself in danger for strangers he barely knew. Sonic had experienced first-hand what it felt like to live imprisoned.

Over the week, the lamenting gang had watched how their blue friend's complexion grew sadder and sadder as the length of time he was forbidden to go outside grew longer and longer.

"I wonder… Does time here go by the same as in your present?" Blaze asked to nobody in particular as she put a hand to her chin.

"Who knows…" Silver replied pensively.

"Rrrgh! I feel so helpless…" Knuckles growled, smacking his fists together.

"There's nothing we can do," Shadow closed his scowling eyes.

"L-Let's follow him upstairs to see if he's okay!" Amy piped up, already moving impulsively up the stairs.

The group reluctantly followed, some casting a hesitant glance at the crying mother crouched in the living room. But again, there was nothing they could do. They could only watch.

One thing they had learnt over the week was that matters from different timelines were unable to come in contact with each other. This meant that physical structures such as walls and doors were no longer obstacles for the time travelling mobians. They all passed through Maurice's wall like ghosts.

Tails shivered. "I'm never gonna get used to that."

The gang found Sonic curled up into a ball of spikes on his bed, his breath hitching as he tried to hold back cries. Silver blinked. He was sure that the blue blur was talking to himself, muttering something under his breath. He strained his silver ears to catch his words.

"…help me… What should I do…?"

And as the child shifted, an intense green glow broke through his trembling form as he lifted a green chaos emerald up into the air. Sonic's friends' eyes widened. There it was, their ticket back home.

"I want to go outside… tell me what I should do… W-Why am I here?" Maurice asked in shaky breaths.

"Is it just me… or is Sonic talking to the emerald?" Knuckles pointed a gloved hand at his friend with a puzzled look on his face.

The blue hedgehog did indeed seem to be looking straight at the emerald he it held up from his lying position.

"I'm not sure," Tails scratched his cheek speculatively while raising an eyebrow.

"Why can I do these things that normal people can't?" the little child asked the gem sadly.

"_You were chosen by chaos. That is simply the way things are."_

Shadow and Silver both seemed to flinch simultaneously, the resonating, out of synch voices booming across the room. "What was…_that_?!"

Blaze glanced at the silver hedgehog confusedly. "What was what?"

"Those voices," Shadow exchanged a glance with Silver, his red orbs narrowing.

"What are you talking about?" Amy raised a lashed eye ridge. "I didn't hear anything."

"_You do not have a choice, or a say in the matter."_

"There it is again…!" Silver exclaimed, his yellow eyes darting across the room in an attempt to discover the speaker.

While the voices were out of synch, it was solid in what message it was trying to put across. The tone was severe and oppressive. Where was it coming from?

Shadow and Silver suddenly made eye-contact, eyes filled with stunned realization.

"It's…It's coming from the emerald…" the silver-white hedgehog whispered in confusion.

"Hmph…" Shadow crossed his arms and glared suspiciously at the source of their discovery. "But that's impossible..."

"What?" Tails' brows scrunched up in disbelief. "The emerald is talking?"

"But that can't be true," Knuckled argued, "I thought only the Master Emerald was a sentient being!"

"Are you sure you're not just hearing things you two?" Amy put her hands on her hips and leaned almost irritably at the two male hedgehogs. "Why can't anyone else hear it?"

"Perhaps only Silver and Shadow can hear it because they both have a deep connection with the chaos emeralds and we do not," Blaze suggested.

The fox genius glanced at her, his baby blue eyes brightening. "That's rather astute Blaze. I was thinking the same thing."

The purple cat smiled almost imperceptibly at the compliment. Knuckles raised his eyes at the emerald in the child Sonic's possession, before turning his gaze back to Shadow and Silver. "Now that we've established that… Do you two know what it's saying?"

"_This world is unable to understand the power you hold. It is in denial—it refuses to acknowledge that you exist." _

Silver shivered, and the ultimate lifeform's fists tightened. "I don't know what it's talking about, but it's not good."

The white hedgehog then proceeded to play parrot and repeated everything they had heard so far. The group grew tenser as Silver told them, and they began to wonder if the history between Sonic and the emeralds was much darker than they had ever imagined.

* * *

Rouge cat-walked towards the large super computer in GUN's main building. She glanced over her shoulder, before turning back towards the large database machine, seating herself on the seat offered there.

She could not afford to have anyone catch her here—she and Shadow had not reported back yet—she was still supposed to be injured from the fight with Eggman and his Egg-nnihilator. While the jewel collector's wing had not fully healed yet, she still managed to manoeuvre herself into the building unnoticed. The girl was one of GUN's top agents after all. But the thief was hardly trusted with her reputation for back-stabbing her companions in the back when it was convenient for her.

This was one of those moments.

So the bat had to keep her ears peeled.

"A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do," she shrugged in a sultry voice while letting a smirk stretch across the side of her face.

The massive computer she was sitting in front of had an entire database of classified information. The white bat didn't doubt for a moment that she would find what she was looking for here.

The thief glanced over her shoulder again, this time checking to see if the knocked out guards on the floor had wrongfully decided to come to again. But they lay there motionless, just as she had left them. She turned back around again, a pleased smile on her face.

She then soundlessly pulled out a piece of paper from the cuff of her glove. On it was an unfamiliar crest. While in Eggman's base, Rouge had noticed the strange insignia on the corner of the images the fat doctor had summoned up. She had copied the crest before the man had noticed; surprised that Shadow hadn't seemed to take note of it. Perhaps he had been too enthralled in Eggman's story.

"Now… Tell me what CUA means…"

* * *

Sonic the Hedgehog blasted through another robot, before letting a sonic boom rip across the concrete as he ploughed through a frond of them, sending torn scraps of metal flying. An explosion blasted behind him, the blood roaring in his ears as he hurtled towards Eggman's base.

While the hero seemed to be doing this with his usual practised ease, something was different. A person who barely knew him wouldn't notice anything amiss. But ask any one of his absent friends, and they would be able to tell that something was very wrong with the blue blur. His hands would ghost over his head when he paused, yes _paused_ to take a breather, his movements jerky and forced. He even took a detour at times around an army of robots rather than ramming right into them.

He was taking much longer than expected.

Eggman was watching from a screen in his new base, his glasses glinting and his brows creasing as he leaned on one elbow. "Hm…"

When Sonic had discovered that all of his friends really had left this timeline, he hadn't been sure what to do. He had rocketed around the planet a few times on autopilot in an attempt to outrun the uneasiness and fear catching up to him. This wasn't like him—why was he worrying? It was strange to be in a world where none of his friends were present, or calling his name so he could lend them a hand in a project… Mobius seemed empty without them. And the hedgehog couldn't help the growing negative feelings in his chest.

Were they really in his past right now?

Without his friends that after all these years the blue blur had come to rely on, he didn't know what to do. Where was his team? Where were his friends? What was he supposed to do now that they weren't there?

Were they really all…gone? He felt side-lined—a liability because he hadn't told them himself what was wrong with him.

He had resorted to do the only thing he still knew enough about that didn't make him feel completely useless. He ripped through another squadron of robots with homing attacks, pirouetting and running up the metallic walls as missiles spiralled after him.

With another loud bang, the fastest thing alive tore through the wall with a spindash, before landing lightly on his two feet. Missile shells lay carelessly behind him, all in a smoking heap. Sonic stood up straight with his usual smirk, a curled hand on his hip.

"You nasty little pincushion… Don't you know how to knock?" Eggman grumbled, not moving from his seat.

He eyed the hedgehog carefully, glad to see that the little rat's coat was its usual blue rather than that murderous aura he had last seen him enveloped in. And no matter how bad Sonic felt about turning into Dark Super Sonic, he hadn't forgotten the injuring of his friends at the hands of the Egg-nnihilator. For a split second, both long-term enemies locked eyes, these similar thoughts crossing their minds.

"What? None of your pushover robots here to kill me?" Sonic replied with his famous half smirk, raising one eye ridge. "What's wrong, Egghead?"

"I should be saying that to you, rodent," the fat man scowled, still leaning on one elbow while he examined the hedgehog in an attempt to figure out what was wrong with him.

"What are you talking about Eggster? Since when was destroying your base a bad hobby?" his cobalt enemy smirked cheekily.

"I usually have to do something meaningful and evil for you to come running…" the doctor waved a hand in the air. "Yet here you are, unprovoked, destroying my robots when I haven't even done a thing."

If the comment bothered him, the blue blur covered it up with experienced ease. He settled with a shrug, trying his best to conceal the almost imperceptible trembling of his body. Sweat was accumulating on his brow, and the fat doctor noticed that the speed demon's eyes were much dimmer than usual. And while Sonic stood up straight, it was less than his standard posture.

"What's wrong, hedgehog?" the mad scientist found himself grinning toothily as he turned his chair to face his enemy properly.

He couldn't help but feel curious about his nemesis' sickly appearance—it was in every good scientist's nature to be inquisitive and eager to solve difficult puzzles. Perhaps the nasty little rat was one of them.

The fastest thing alive tried to straighten up again and seem more alert, alarm bells ringing in his head—it was bad enough that his sworn enemy had already noticed something was wrong with him. He assumed a very cocky face, his eyes drooping over mocking green eyes as he glanced around the room filled with overly complicated machines, some unfinished. "That's what I wanted to ask you ever since I met you."

The red man also observed uneasily how the hedgehog's fur had become slightly darker than his traditional cobalt pelt as they talked.

"You want something from me," it was more of a statement of facts than a guess on Eggman's part. "Otherwise you would have destroyed this room minutes ago. There's no reason why you'd come all this way, just to stand there like a sitting duck—"

"W…!"

And before the speedster could move, the fat man had already pressed a button that commanded restraints from the ground to grab at the hedgehogs wrists and legs, before tiny laser guns fired green electricity-like tendrils at the stunned hedgehog. "U-Ungh!"

The intensity of the beams was so strong they held the blue blur a meter off the ground.

"Wh-What are you…?! Gah!"

The red scientist watched with a mixture of fascination and concentration from behind his gleaming glasses as green coils of energy arced up and down the blue hedgehog's body, his body shaking with pain as the light tendrils raked across his skin, while leaving no discernable marks.

After only a few seconds, which seemed like minutes to Sonic, the bloated doctor released the button and the blue blur's quivering body dropped to the ground on his hands and knees, restraints and guns retreating back into their respectful cavities in the metallic ground.

"Y-You…!" the hero wheezed angrily, before halting abruptly mid-insult.

He stared at his hands in surprise, before checking his body as Eggman simply sat back in his swivelling chair.

"That's the…" the speed demon trailed off in shock.

"Yes, the energy I just shot you with comes from the Master Emerald. Did you really believe that after all those times I've stolen it, I wasn't able to syphon off a bit of its energy before you managed to stop me? I was hoping to use it for a better occasion—but there wasn't enough of it anyway," Eggman propped his face on his closed glove fist.

Sonic stood up shakily, his guarded eyes not leaving his nemesis as he tried to stand straight again in an attempt to retrieve some of his dignity. "Why…did you help me?"

The mad scientist grinned in his usual evil fashion. "Help you? Rodent, this is just a simple matter of satiating my curiosity as a scientist. And I can conclude for this experiment that the Master Emerald's energy is the only thing that can prevent your Dark Super form transformation, am I correct?"

The blue hedgehog growled, thrown out of his comfort zone—he didn't like revealing any weaknesses to his enemy—he was usually very good at concealing openings. Today hadn't been a very good day so far.

"You're in pretty bad shape, Sonic," it was rare for the doctor to use his name. "You're usually more than able to anticipate and evade such measly laser guns."

The cobalt speedster's eyes narrowed. He wasn't used to being read so easily—his acting was always pretty much spotless. But as much as he hated to admit it, Eggbutt was right. He wasn't feeling too good. Ever since he'd distanced himself from the Master emerald shards, his Dark Super transformation was slowly creeping in—negative feelings or not.

"Where are your friends, rodent?" Eggman taunted him with an evil smile.

_They're gone. They're gone and I…_

"That's none of your business," Sonic tried to smirk, wiping his nose with a finger while the other hand balled into a fist.

"Don't tell me you came all this way just to take your anger out on me," the doctor placed a hand on his chest, still grinning for ear to ear at his arch-nemesis's unnerved stare. "Destroying my intricately designed robots just to get rid of your frutrations won't do you any good."

_I don't know what I'm doing anymore. Why am I even here?_

Sonic had expected to waltz in here like he always did, but taking out a few robots had left the blue blur breathless. He felt feverish and sluggish, the pain that had blossomed in his chest and head unbearable. It was like someone had poured acid down his throat and his heart was continuously pumping it into his bloodstream.

_I thought I'd be fine, but the truth is, I don't know what I'm doing._

Even just now, his reactions and movements had been poor—as well as his judgement to trust the mad scientist. He should have been on his guard, ready to dodge any attack his enemy threw at him—but instead his attention had been diverted internally to the dizzying pain humming in his body. The negative energy…it was getting worse… At this rate, not even the Master Emerald's influence would be able to stop it.

The bloated doctor was right.

"Why don't you have a seat, rodent?"

He couldn't afford to go back to Cream's house, where the Master Emerald shard lay. If it failed, it would be too dangerous for the two rabbits to be around him. And the chaos emeralds there would only encourage the transformation…who knows what that _thing _would do to them?

And by the time Sonic had realized that the Master Emerald was his only antidote, he'd already put too much of a distance between him and Angel Island, where the rest of the pieces lay. He found that he could run a measly 80mph at best before collapsing in the middle of nowhere—he wouldn't be able to make it—and it would only hasten his transformation.

"Since you asked so nicely," Sonic reassumed an arrogant smirk, walking over to a chair that rose up from a metal hatch in the ground.

He needed help, although he would never say it out loud. And the only other person who wasn't as vulnerable as the two rabbits and who hadn't left into the past was…

Why _was_ he here?

He needed to be compliant if he wanted to get what he wanted done. He covered up the aching in his body by forcing his march to the chair to be as fluid as possible.

He had to jump in order to seat himself on the human-sized chair, its height only highlighting the hedgehog's small stature compared to the fat human. Of course, what he lacked in height, he more than made up for in attitude. He crossed his legs and kicked them up onto the giant keyboard controlling Eggman's super computer and placed his arms on the armrests—looking very laid-back in contrast to his position a few seconds ago. "So, what's up Egghead?"

As he had told himself before, his judgement at the moment was poor.

Strong metal cuffs wrapped around his wrists from the armrests, locking them almost painfully tight. Sonic groaned inwardly—he would have facepalmed if he could. Despite that, the blue joker maintained his famous half smile, his green eyes staring at Eggman challengingly. "You sure know how to make a guest feel welcome."

The fat man grinned, stroking his moustache. "Well after the number you did on my previous base, I thought I'd take a few necessary precautions in case things got…dicey."

"Mind letting me go so I can file a 'complaint'?" the fastest thing alive asked in a scathing tone.

"I'd rather we discussed the reason why you and your furry friends keep paying me such thoughtful visits actually," the doctor replied, his glasses glinting. "It's becoming rather annoying."

The hedgehog couldn't help but feel worried and really surprised. Just how far had they been willing to find out about him if his friends had been _here_? If they had, then that meant…

Sonic's laidback façade dropped, and his eye ridges pulled down over glittering green eyes. "What… did you tell them?"

The slight downward twist of the red man's mouth at his nemesis' sudden threatening tone was the only thing that denoted his unease. "You're certainly not in the position to be making demands, hedgehog."

The cobalt hero knew that above all things, he should be keeping his cool. But he had never been in a situation where everyone was so eager to find out about his history—he couldn't help but feel defensive about it. What if because of all this, his friends were in danger?

Or what if they came back and never looked at him the same way again? Fear blossomed in his chest, his eyes widening almost imperceptibly. If they stopped believing in what he stood for, what would he do then? What if his friends _hated_ him?

His anger and frustration only grew.

"Are you the one who told them to look into my past?!" Sonic asked loudly, his arms in the restraints straining to be set free.

His voice was sharp and much deeper, and Eggman pondered on whether to pull out the laser guns again in case he suddenly turned into Dark Super Sonic here and now.

"I didn't tell them anything important… Just enough so that the pink hedgehog would stop threatening me with that hammer of hers," the human grunted.

The speed demon found his bunched up shoulders relaxing slightly.

"Did you really think I would so readily give away information that was so difficult for me to acquire?" Eggman went on, waving his hands about dramatically, well known for loving the sound of his own voice. "My ingenious research doesn't come for free."

Sonic shook his head vigorously to get a grip on himself. He wasn't acting very professional. If his friends were in danger, he knew exactly what he had to do. He'd do what he did best, and there was nothing that was going to stop him.

His face finally set in his well-known determined expression, his gaze squarely meeting his nemesis' glass-covered gaze. "I need you to build me something that will get me to the past. Where my friends are."

* * *

Maurice's emerald eyes opened dizzily. He could see blurry faces and hands. He flinched away from them, confused and frightened as they twisted and turned his body, as if to examine him.

"…_him…maybe…"_

The scared hedgehog's breathing quickened as he tried to gain his bearings. He was flipped over so that his stomach came in contact with a solid cold surface, and he kicked and squirmed as he tried to get away from his captors.

"…_dead…freak."_

"N…" his voice was gone, but with a ripple of fur, his quills hardened into deadly knives.

A cry came from one of the voices, while others rushed in and applied restraints to the now blindly wriggling blue pup. The light was blinding. He couldn't see a thing, his eyes producing black dots as they were constantly met with the ceiling's harsh lighting. Was it day? Was it night?

What was going on? Where was he?

"…_four…ears old…"_

His hearing was all gone... The ringing wouldn't stop... His normally bright emerald eyes were hazy as he tried to find a grip somewhere on what he faintly recognized as…an operation table. What… Why? W-What was he doing here? Panicked wrapped around him like a suffocating blanket, and his tiny mouth opened and released a frightened scream.

The tiny blue hedgehog's efforts to be set free redoubled, his actions reduced to nothing more than instinctive reactions to the stimuli around him. Hands were pinning him down, eyes of all colours staring at him as they shone a light into his eyes practically covered by his tired lids.

What…happened…?

"…_orphan."_

* * *

_**Well…that was a dark way to end this… ^^" Oh well!**_

_**It's difficult to keep everyone in character since they've never been put in those situations before—so hopefully this is the closest thing as to how they'd react! **__**Please tell me in the comments if the characters aren't true to their canon selves!**_

_**Any suggestions on what Sonic's mother's name should be? Withholding it for the sake of story drama XD Thanks ;) **_

_**Again, sorry for the late update and hope you enjoyed! Please let me know your thoughts of the chapter with a review, and if you liked it, please fav and follow! :D**_

_**Till next time~ ;)**_


	7. Chapter 7: Path To Ruin

StH beLIEve Chapter 7: Path to Ruin

_**Heya everyone! **_

_**I'm sorry I'm uploading less often—you'd think since it's summer I'd have more time, but I'm busier than ever! XD I will try to update asap when I can though, for you guys ;) **_

_**Gah! As usual, your reviews, favs and follows never fail to leave a smile on my face, so thanks guys for supporting me this far! :D Thank you for being patient with the updates!**_

_**I admit I was having a major writer's block—the follow up I had in store for this chapter had too many plot holes and OCs I'd rather keep to a minimum for this story**_… _**But hopefully what I've managed to conjure up in this chappie is a better follow up.**_

_**I know **__**the last chapter was really sad, but I told you from the start…! This story is dark!**_

_**Suggestions for Sonic's mother's name have been taken into account, I especially liked Decoda! :) It seems we have a resounding vote though for a name already given to his mother, so we'll go with either Aleena or Bernadette. ^^ **_

_**I hope you all enjoy this one ;)**_

* * *

Rouge the bat stalked across the street of Station Square with a small backpack on one shoulder, a contented air about her. She had gathered an important piece of information, one that she hoped the time-travelling mobians hadn't discovered before her on their stay in the past. Well. It didn't really matter anyway. However impressive she was at information hunting, there were always other things to hunt.

She stopped in front of a jewellery store.

The white bat could only smile satisfactorily at the thought of the seven chaos emeralds in her backpack. After her little trip to GUN, she had decided to reward herself with a little congratulatory present of jewellery.

Rouge had snuck into Vanilla's house and swiped all seven gems without the rabbits noticing. Forget about bed-ridden Sonic, a lady deserved to treat herself every once and a while! And all seven of them were just lying there, begging to be picked up…

The emerald thief's lip-stick coated grin stretched across the side of her face. She could make a whole necklace out of them. Or maybe a ring for almost every finger. She hadn't had a good day like this in a long time—nor did she believe in jinx.

She let her backpack slide down her side and zipped it open, just double-checking that the source of her giddiness was still there even though she knew they were. "Let me have another look at you, my beautiful darlings…"

But as soon as the emeralds peered out from the bag, the white bat dropped them in shock, watching disbelievingly as colourless, lifeless grey emeralds clattered out of it and onto the concrete.

"My… My babies! What's going on?" Rouge grabbed one and hopelessly stared at it with wide ice-blue eyes.

She looked around, as if trying to find the source that had taken away her prize's mesmerising shine. The jewel thief then blinked. It was only then she noticed why the streets seemed empty. She blinked hard again. Mobians and humans alike were lying haphazardly on the ground, like they had been going on their merry way and suddenly dropped dead. A horrible feeling was pulled out of her, making her heart lurch.

Then, she too, found herself sprawling onto the floor, unconscious.

* * *

"This is impossible…" Tails mumbled as he stared blankly at his wrist-communicator.

"Tails… are you sure?" Knuckles frowned.

"U-Unless it's broken…" the fox scratched his head.

"There's only one way to find out!" the echidna smacked his fists together. "Where's the closest one?"

"It should be right over there…" the mechanic pointed shakily at a distant spot in the grassy ground.

"Alright… let's go," the guardian charged in that direction, pulling his shovel claws out of his dreadlocks.

Tails watched as his friend started furiously digging at the given spot a few yards away, heaps of dirt flying. The yellow fox distantly heard the multiple footsteps behind him, some jogging, some walking. "Hey, did you guys find anything?"

The heap of dirt Knuckles was piling behind himself was beginning to resemble a giant molehill.

The young genius turned to face a jogging Amy, Silver and Blaze, with Shadow walking slowly behind them. The pink hedgehog put both of her fists on her hips impatiently. "Did your wrist-communicator thing finally decide to start working again?"

The mechanic shuffled his feet nervously, rubbing the back of his head. "I… I'm not sure."

"What do you mean you're not—"

"Tails!"

The kid fox whipped around, his eyes wide as Knuckles seemed to be staring at something he'd dug up. His fists tightened as the echidna reached down, before lifting a cyan blue chaos emerald out of the dirt.

"Oh?" Blaze muttered in surprise.

There was a long silence between Tails and Knuckles as they shared a shocked glance. Sure, they'd found a chaos emerald. But—

"Hurray!" Amy jumped up in the air in joy, breaking anything remotely related to silence as usual. "We found a chaos emerald!"

"Now we can finally go back to the present now that we've found two of them," Silver nodded.

"I wonder how Sonic's doing…" the pink girl clasped her hands and fluttered her lashes dreamily. "He must be missing me."

"He must have woken up by now. It's been a week here. But there's no telling if time goes by the same here and over there," Blaze said.

"We've stayed here for far too long," Shadow growled, crossing his arms. "It's dangerous to stay in an era we don't belong in for a long period of time. It could warp the time-zone."

The yellow and red pair had not joined in on this conversation—they had only stared dumbfounded at each other.

Tails blinked. "I…I guess the wrist-communicator was right…"

"…That means…" the red guardian's purple orbs gapped open in realization.

"What? What are you guys gawking at each other like idiots for?" Amy sighed huffily. "Why am I always being kept out of the loop?"

"I-If the wrist-communicator was right all this time… if it's giving off all the locations of the emeralds…Then all the chaos emeralds are here…" Tails stuttered.

"What do you mean?" Shadow demanded beside him.

Knuckles' muzzle seemed slightly pale. "The wrist-communicator shows that all seven chaos emeralds have been buried around kid Sonic's house."

* * *

"Whaddaya mean you can't do it?!" the fastest thing alive lurched forward in his seat, and would have grabbed the doctor's collar if it hadn't been for the restraints holding him down.

Eggman's frown was only pulled deeper over his dark glasses as he tapped at his computer with rapid skill, the screen's multiple windows reflecting in his shaded gaze. "It would take me months to complete a fully functional time-travelling machine, let alone ensure it would stay open long enough to allow you to come back. Not that I would mind if you didn't."

"But that's stupid! I need to get my friends now, not in a few months!" Sonic growled in frustration, his green glare not leaving the scientist. "You're supposed to be a genius right? Can't you do something to make it go faster?"

"No," his nemesis grunted. "I would need at least two chaos emeralds for that. And even then, it could be a matter of weeks."

"Rrrgh!" the blue blur groaned. "What if those guys need me? They're in a danger!"

"The only 'danger' here is you, rodent," the fat man grumbled. "They're probably safer there than here. What makes you think I'd do anything for the likes of _you_ in the first place?"

The cobalt hedgehog opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"What? No witty comebacks? Out of taunts are we?" Eggman grinned as he sat back in his chair with a piano-like smile, his glinting glasses turning away from the screen to his enemy.

"I…"

He wasn't really sure why he thought Eggman would help him.

"It never seizes to amaze me how brainless you can really be. Your impulsive actions are what have led you into this mess in the first place."

Sonic got a grip on himself.

"Did you tie me up just so you could lecture me, ya crazy old man?" the speedster snorted, his eyes snapping shut and his head turning sharply away.

A huge window came up on the super computer's screen, which seemed to be drawing the red roboticist's attention away from a very irritated hero.

"Hey! Aren't you listening to me?" he turned to rake his emerald green eyes on the doctor.

"It surprises me how hopeless you are without your furry little friends around to worship you. Strange how that patheticness in you finally seems to kick in then, don't you think?" his nemesis only responded, still looking at what appeared to be a set of stats on the giant computer.

"Says the guy I've beaten every single time. Well gee, I wonder how pathetic that is," the blue blur said sarcastically.

"Well perhaps you should deal with your own problems before you come to me asking for things I'd never give you, you deplorable cobalt cactus…!" Eggman growled while scrolling down the page of statistics. "The only reason why I'm keeping you here is so that I can complete my research."

"What are you planning on doing with me?" the fastest thing alive's voice was a mixture of wariness and curiosity.

"An interesting amount of blackmail material I've found out about you wouldn't you say?" the bloated genius only grinned widely.

"Look, pal, I didn't come here so we could play twenty questions. If you can't make a time-travelling thingy, I'm outta here," Sonic shrugged in his usual nonchalant way, closing his eyes again and turning away slightly.

Now, if only he could get out of this chair… He churned his wrists from within the platinum circlets keeping him locked in place, scowling ever so slightly at the sharp sting as his rubbed-raw skin grazed the cuffs as he shifted. From this standstill, it was impossible for the speed demon to gain any momentum, so it reduced the chance of him being able to spindash the chair in half to zero.

"You're not going anywhere, you nasty little pincushion. I had that metal specifically designed for a rare occasion such as this. If you give me the information I want, perhaps I'll see to it that your little time machine be built a little faster, hmm?" the mad scientist beamed, while swivelling his chair to face Sonic.

The blue hedgehog regained his usual mask of uncaringness as he hid away at the suspicious uneasiness eating away at him. "You can forget it, Egghead. I'm not doing anything for you."

"Then I suppose you don't care what happens to your friends then?" his bloated enemy taunted, faking a sad expression. "Perhaps they'll be taken care of by your past self—you know—if they become his prey."

The cobalt hero lunged forward in his seat again, his teeth practically bared as his eye ridges pulled his face down into an angry scowl. "Of course I care about them! Using my past to trick me into doing whatever is low even for you, Eggman…!"

"As long as it works…" the fat red man's finger's skimmed his orange moustache contently, while warily noticing Sonic's fur flash a dark blue before disappearing again.

Perhaps he should ease up a bit. His furry nemesis was a ticking time bomb, a catastrophe waiting to happen—the doctor certainly did not want that to happen when he was close.

"Settle down, Sonic. At this rate, you'll find yourself back where you started—a hedgehog consumed by negative emotions…who knows what would happen to your friends then," the human reasoned with the disgruntled hero, who forced himself to relax by taking deep breaths.

When he saw his blue enemy relent and calm down again, Eggman decided to start his questions while Sonic briefly wondered whether bi-polarism was one of the credentials of being labelled insane. Or perhaps just a breath away from it anyway.

"Before you took my four chaos emeralds from me after you rescued that rabbit girl, I was studying them, believe it or not. At first, I wanted to use them for world domination and power-up my new super machine, the Egg-nnihilator. But then I noticed that their energy wavelength was highly unusual to their normal energies—it piqued my interest, and I began researching the source behind their discolouration."

The speed demon's eye twitched in boredom. "So?"

…Though he felt himself unable to conceal the bunching up of his entire body.

"When chaos emeralds become grey it usually means that all of its negative energy has been drawn out by its user. One of those users is you, Sonic. So you tell me."

"What's there to tell, Eggy? I don't know what's wrong with those emeralds—they were fine when I saw them in those containers before you came barging in with your dumb robot."

"I gave them a shot of the Master Emerald's energy, which restored their glow. Your recent Dark Super Sonic transformation tells me that the culprit behind its increase in negative energy is you, rodent. I managed to analyse your chaos energy wavelength—the results say that it is identical to that of the emeralds. The holder's emotions and thoughts control the chaos emeralds in a way that my robots cannot—studying you will help me create the strongest robots to ensure my takeover of this world. OOOhohohohohooohoo!"

Sonic's eyelids drooped over his eyes in exasperation as Eggman began cackling madly as he went on his world dominating tirade. "Uh…yeah. Not happening."

"Ohohoho-argh…!"as the fat man finally regained himself, coughing slightly as he choked on his own spit, the only thing the blue hedgehog wanted to do was facepalm.

"Ehem… Anyways… It's unusual for my goody-two-shoes nemesis to have any dark thoughts… and ones strong enough to influence emeralds that were buried miles away from him nonetheless…" the doctor prodded.

"What are you, my psychiatrist?"

"Do you want to go rescue your friends or not?"

The speedster opened his mouth to throw a comeback, only to have it never leave his mouth as he pondered over this. He refused to willingly let his arch enemy know anything about him, including any weaknesses he could potentially exploit. He shook his head roughly. His past didn't matter as long as his friends were safe—even if Eggman used it to his advantage, and giving in to his foe's cons was highly unprofessional, Sonic had to make sure Tails, Knuckles and the others were alright. They were all in this mess because of his stubbornness to tell them—he needed to set things right.

He'd made a mistake. He would rather his past come straight from him than have them interpret it for themselves—he'd only delayed the inevitable. And now, if they greeted him disgusted by his past, it would be all his fault… They might never believe in him again. Would they all distance themselves?

He scrunched up his eyes again in order to snap out of it. He was being stupid. He'd just have to find out when it happened and deal with it like he always did—without a plan.

"Alright alright, Baldy McNosehair. I'll answer whatever."

His taunt was ignored.

"Excellent," the bloated roboticist grinned in satisfaction. "So tell me… what is going on with you and those emeralds?"

Sonic shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his light green eyes shifting to the side. He needed to do this, even if he felt out of his element. "I…Recently, I've been having nightmares. It's stupid …but I've been thinking about em' and that's probably why the emeralds are like that."

He almost felt sick for telling his main antagonist such a pathetic story—bile rose in throat as he risked a glance up at Eggman. The red human was only beaming with triumph, pleased to have his adversary divulging potential weak points to him. "There's more…isn't there?"

_Can't say anything. _The hedgehog's grip tightened on the armrests to the point they began to bend in his fingers while he put on a cocky grin. "Look, Egghead—"

"Sonic, I applaud you for concealing yourself from your comrades for this long," the doctor rarely ever used his name. "But we have an agreement."

Eggman was hesitant as to how far he should go. But he needed the hedgehog to confirm the validity of the secret files he had uncovered. Out of the blue, he decided to ask, "Your name… your real name is Maurice isn't it?"

The 16 year old froze, his arrogant expression vanishing in an instant. His muzzle went white. How had Eggman found out?

Here he was, strapped to a seat, unable to escape from his trial. All he could feel was the beating of his heart as a dark cloud encroached on him. All he could think about was what he should say—and all the mistakes he'd made. Even if this was for his friends, why couldn't he… "W-What? No, I'm not…That's not…!"

For once, Sonic the Hedgehog was at a loss for words.

He gritted his teeth, trying to keep cool. He felt like he'd lost his voice. Or perhaps was being stripped of his name of Sonic the Hedgehog. He'd come here for a way to save his friends, not his court hearing. His face suddenly felt very hot, the anger going to his head.

"Maurice was separated from his mother when he was four, is my research correct?"

"L-Look, Eggman…" the blue blur's anger only rose, "You have no idea what you're talking about…! I left my past behind me a long time ago, and I'm not looking back! So stop it!"

Was this…what stress was? He hadn't felt it in a long time—he had always managed to erase it from his presence until now… He tried to loosen his muscles—they needed to be prepared for anything in Eggman's base.

"All I need to find out is if this 'Maurice' in these secret files is you or not."

The snarl was out before the hedgehog could stop it. He flew off the handle. **"I'm. NOT. Him!"**

His fur darkened and his quills began to raise, the platinum straps snapping like toothpicks as black aura seeped out of the hero's skin like smoke.

The fastest thing alive could hear the laughter in his head.

A blast of black air would have blown the red roboticist back if hadn't been for his chair that was nailed to the ground.

"Gah!" the red scientist screeched, his hand hovering over the button that would release the Master Emerald's energy. "S-Sonic! My research has shown that if the build-up of negative energy inside the chaos emeralds becomes too strong, it would be released outwardly and would inevitably endanger the whole of Mobius!"

"Ggh!" the hero hissed, his hands forming into fists as he felt like he couldn't control his own body.

Was he turning into…that thing?

"_**I'm always here… You can't get rid of me!"**_

"_No!"_ **It** was _talking _him…

"You need to keep your anger under control, or an incident similar to Dark Gaia's spawn possessing people could occur…!" Eggman garbled out.

"_**I'll destroy everything you care about…"**_

The blue blur's newly released hands flew to his head, before his body slipped off the chair and he landed on his hands and knees. "NO!**"**

"You'll be permanently overrun by the dark energy of the chaos emeralds!"

"Noooooo…!" His entire body wracked a massive shudder.

The strands of dark energy blasted outwards before converging on the gasping hedgehog, before finally vanishing from the air. Sonic's quills fell back down. His fur however, stayed the same ominous shadowy blue. Shivering and panting, the dark hero remained hunched over onto the ground, staring at the ground with clouded eyes. "U-Ungh…"

That had been a little too close for comfort. There was a long silence between the two enemies, the only sound in the room being the hero's rasping heaving.

"…Get out of here," Eggman said suddenly from above him.

The fat scientist had backed away despite recovering from his panicked state.

"H-Huh…?" the tired hedgehog that had just fought over his body stared at the scientist confusedly.

The speedster wobbled as he tried to get up, his attention still in his head. What…_was _that? Had it really been…? He shivered slightly, wrapping his arms around himself. _"Y-you again…"_

"You're in pretty bad shape, rodent. You're a bomb waiting to be set off! My theory is that your mind and body will continue to dilapidate into your dark form as long as you have these negative feelings. The emeralds embody your state of mind, and if they're grey, it's not a good sign. It seems like these negative emotions have begun to fester tenfold after your friends left…" Eggman turned his back to the speed demon.

There was a pause. "…Gather the seven chaos emeralds and I'll be able to create chaos control in three days."

"But I though you said—"

"I said it would take weeks with only two chaos emeralds. I never said anything about seven."

Sonic stood up stiffly, trying to get blood flowing in his limbs again. "Like I'm falling for your tricks—"

"Get out of here," Eggman repeated. "I couldn't care less what happens to your furry little friends."

With a long look, Sonic scowled at his foe, before turning away and speeding off the way he'd blasted in from. "I'll find em'."

The bloated genius still remained facing away from where the blue blur had left. He took off his glasses, wiping them, before placing them back in front of his eyes again. "Make sure you don't run us all down into ruin, hedgehog."

* * *

Maurice slipped out of the window, quiet like the night he was stepping into. He'd heard a strange noise outside—and it was for none other than Maurice the Hedgehog to investigate, and if need be, save the day!

He slunk into a shrub of bushes, excited green eyes peering out from his hiding spot. He could feel the midnight breeze on his shoulders, in his quills. It felt good to be back again. It had been days since the child had been allowed to go outside. His injuries from his bullies had long since healed. Right now, the four year old pup had only just discovered that his mother had forgotten to lock one of the windows.

So he continued to crawl along the undergrowth, wishing his cobalt fur to blend into the night. He was an undercover secret agent, ready to attack whatever strange sound had infiltrated the front yard of the house.

Then, there was the scent.

It wafted past his nose, but it was so unimportant at the moment, he took no notice of it. Spies couldn't be distracted! But as he crept out of his hiding spot under the hedge and into the trees, the bitter odour hit him full blast a few minutes later.

Then, the same sound as before.

Aha! But this time, it wasn't coming from the yard. It was from behind him. Some sort of hissing? It seemed entwined with the stench from earlier. …What? It was then that Maurice raised his head, confused as his little black nose wiggled, before he slowly turned to look back at the house.

It was burning.

"Mommy!" the blue hedgehog screamed.

Without a moment's thought, the son tore across the yard, his stealth mission forgotten as he watched the frail wooden house become swallowed up in flames. The infrastructure was collapsing quickly, and the kid could only stare helplessly as the roof caved in. "Mommy? Mommy?!"

He was about to charge in when cold metal met with his face. His head snapped back. He flew across the grass, before landing in a stunned heap. His heart was thumping a million times a minute. Weight settled on his face—which Maurice recognized as a boot. "You ain't goin' nowhere, freak."

"Don't incapacitate it, that's valuable research money," another voice growled.

What was going on? Why were these people here? The child's half closed eye darted from side to side, desperately trying to catch sight of his attackers. He couldn't move. His wriggling only warranted added pressure as the boot further crushed the side of his cheek. He shrieked in fear.

Where was his mother? He had to get to her—he had to save her!

"Heh, heh… That should smoke her out," the first voice chuckled.

The little speedster could only shout and cry out desperately as he could hear the cracking wood of the burning house. Where was she?

He only heard the whirring of what sounded like machines as they stomped across the yard, destroying the grass and leaving dirt and mud in their wake. A swift kick to his side to quieten him knocked the breath out of him. He lay under the boot, gasping for breath.

"You!" a voice suddenly screeched.

Then the weight abruptly fell off him. Maurice sprang up, a shivering wreck as he stared everywhere, trying to process what was happening to him. In the shadows, a downed individual lay, unmoving. The pup was unsure whether he unconscious or dead.

His ears had been right—massive robots marched across the remains of his still blazing home, their mechanical clinking and tinking heard above the roaring of the flames. The blue hedgehog's eyes welled up, before his eyes landed on none other than his mother's back.

He blinked. His mother was here—outside. With him.

Relief washed over him, however brief—she hadn't died—she hadn't burned along with the house—she'd come to rescue him, just like she always said she would.

But he could see every fibre of her being shake as she stood in front of him—he knew she was having a panic attack. The home she had desperately caged herself in had been burned away, leaving her open and vulnerable. But from what? From who?

Maurice got his answer.

His mother was facing off a group of seven heavily armed individuals with military uniforms and three robots, one arm stuck out protectively over her son. "I-I won't let y-you take him…!"

"Look at ya, after all these years, you're still a mess…" the figure she had apparently downed started getting back up again, holding a bleeding wound in his shoulder. "The famous adventurer…still unable to leave her house."

"You…You will pay for this!" she shouted in a voice the young Sonic had never heard before.

He understood why he hadn't recognized her voice the first time—it was sharp and unforgiving—before she had always sounded soft and gentle. It frightened him. Who were these people? And why did his mother know of them? Had this been what she had been afraid of this entire time?

"We're only doing ya a favour… Getting' rid of that unhealthy attachment to your lover's house…" the masked person sneered. "You're so scared of us after all…"

Maurice had expected her to cower. But for once, his mother's back straightened, her posture completely changed in a matter of seconds. "How can I be afraid of leaving my house when my fear is right in front of me? I may be scared but I willprotect my son!"

"Like you protected your husband?" another voice among the seven individuals jibbed.

He could only stare in shock as his mother fell silent, now very visibly trembling everywhere. The cobalt's big eyes widened. His…dad?

"W-What have you done to him?!" he watched in astonishment and confusion as his mother stomped her foot down on the floor, her legs bending like she was about to throw herself at them.

There were tears in her voice. They were making his mommy cry…

"His astounding speed proved to be quite interesting…" an older voice resonated in the burning night. "But like all interesting things… he gradually became…obsolete."

A wave of terror and grief wracked through his mother's sepia body, her hands seizing into shaking fists as she threw them down to her sides.

"_NO_!" she cried out, her fierce voice now a sob. "No! He wouldn't…!"

Everything was happening so fast. His father? What had happened to him? The hedgehog he'd never met…

"Give us the seven mystical gems you are hiding! Or else!" the older voice commanded her with his rough, booming voice.

Maurice could only clutch his mother's leg, his entire body trembling uncontrollably. He screwed his eyes shut, unable to believe this was happening. "Mommy…!"

"I-I will never give them to the l-likes of you!" she growled, but her voice was still quivering. "You won't get a-away with what you are d-doing!"

"Then why hasn't anybody come to stop us?" said a fourth voice.

"I guess we'll have to take em' by force…" the first one smirked under his mask.

They all laughed in satisfaction, as if they wouldn't have it any other way—even if his mother had given them what they wanted. They all began to walk towards them slowly, taking their sweet time.

"Maurice," his mother's voice came urgent and strained. "Run. R-Run as fast as you can. G-Get out of here!"

"But m-mo—"

She pushed him off her leg, shoving him behind her. Her pretty blue eyes were as cold as glaciers. They flitted warmly again, but in the very same instant, they were back to freezing.

"…Just go! You can't let them catch you…! Your father was caught and he…he… There's no time! I'll hold them off!" the mother adventurer barred their attackers' path. "Now hurry!"

The cobalt pup could only watch as a familiar ripple passed through the female hedgehog's brown-coloured fur, before her back became a deadly display of knives able to cut through metal. "I _won't_ let you take my son."

Along with their robots, they approached, their faces all twisted into grins. "Come and meet your death, ya freak mobian mutation!"

"GO!"

The four-year old could only turn and run, his eyes blinded by tears as he darted through the yard and into the forest. The burning wood, grass, hair, furniture—stinging his nostrils, the sounds of robots being smashed to pieces, the shouts of orders—screaming at each other to finish her off, to go after him. Bullets whizzed past his head, his pursuers shooting blind.

One of them grazed his leg.

The child screamed in pain, his running slowing to a fast walking lilt. He stumbled and almost tripped, his breath hiccupping as tears ran down his muzzle, his eyes cloudy. It was only a matter of time before he finally tripped and fell onto his hands and knees, his stomach hurling up its contents as his lungs tried to reject the smoke he had inhaled. "W-Why…!"

His shoulders heaving, he looked furtively behind him. He could hear the running footsteps after him, the slashing of knives through branches as they broke through the undergrowth. He staggered back up, holding his injured leg that was bleeding profusely now, past the fronds of branches that whipped and cut his face. He had to keep on running…or his mother would…

_Use that speed of yours to run away, ya coward!_

_Always running away I see?_

The taunts of his old bullies echoing in his head, Maurice sobbed. They caught up. Then the same metallic stun gun smacked him around the head, and he dropped like a stone. He saw blood as it spread into his vision across the familiar damp moss of his home.

"…M-Mom…my…"

It was the last time he ever saw Christmas Island.

* * *

Blaze could only pat at a sobbing Amy's head as she threw her hands over her eyes while turning away from the scene. While the purple cat felt awkward, she found that she was easily able to push this aside at the sight of her pink friend's distress.

The scene had been upsetting for everyone, and everyone stared blankly at the burnt remains of the house.

Tails was sitting with Knuckles who was rubbing his back as the fox remained hunched forwards and silent. Silver was with Shadow, neither of them speaking as if they couldn't believe what had just happened to their rival. While the time-travelling hedgehog had a dismayed expression written all over his face, the ultimate lifeform was as pokerfaced as ever. But his balled fists indicated that the event that had just occurred clearly bothered him. "I can't believe that Faker."

"You'd think he'd at least tell us something…!" Silver shouted in frustration, spreading his arms out and giving his head a sad shake.

"He never said a-anything to me!" Tails sniffed out in anger from his spot on the ground.

Amy only whimpered as she curled into a sorrowful Blaze's chest.

The echidna scowled sharply. "That guy's…an idiot… He's never been the sentimental type… He probably never said anything because he didn't think it was important."

As the group lamented over their lying hero, Shadow had walked out of the forest and moved along the debris of the house. He examined the broken robots left in Sonic's mother's wake after she had charged at them. The hedgehog was surprised that the female had any abilities at all—she had shown no signs of it until that moment. Had she hid them on purpose? It appeared that her special ability had been to harden her spines enough to smash through metal—an ability which her son had inherited.

While all hedgehogs had the ability to harden their quills to a defensive extent, few were able to harden them to the point of piercing through metal. Shadow had learnt that he had been designed that way by Gerald in order to protect Maria.

In the groups haste to watch over their cobalt friend, they had followed the running Maurice into the forest where he had fled, only to witness the bleeding child be hauled off by his pursuers. Unable to follow him as they shoved him into the only remaining robot's hatch that took off into the air, they had all halted into the forest where Sonic had left them. They had not seen what had happened to his mother.

Had she died? Her body was not here. Critical red eyes inspected the ground, noticing that the pool of blood had been smeared into a direction, as if the victim that had been lying there had been dragged away. Had she been taken along with her son? Alive? Dead?

Shadow closed his eyes into a frown and shook his head. Rouge had been right after all. There was something more to Sonic. And the blue cretin hadn't 'had it all good' like he had thought. He had experienced pain like the red and black hedgehog had, and yet, all this time, he hadn't said a word. He had misjudged his cobalt rival—it seemed he knew what it felt like to lose a loved one, like he had lost Maria. But… how could Sonic act so…happy? Perhaps the name 'Faker' had been truly appropriate after all.

The ultimate lifeform growled. He wasn't sure whether he respected or hated the hedgehog even more now. But as he picked up a robot part that had been scattered along with the rest of the machines, he noticed on the metallic plate burnt initials. He scrutinized it for a while before he finally made it out.

**CUA.**

He went rigid. "This is…"

"Shadow? Shadow, where did you go?" he distantly heard Silver's voice, along with other approaching footsteps.

"There you are," Blaze's voice was muffled.

When he had first been integrated into GUN and had begun his new life, Shadow had made it his duty to know almost everything that had happened in the world Maria cared so much for. After what happened on the ARK and his amnesia, the red and black hedgehog never wanted to be taken advantage of for his lack knowledge again. So he had spent endless nights of research accessing secret information, making sure he was never blind-sided again.

While he couldn't remember much about it very well, Shadow recognized what it stood for. Never had he ever believed it would be related to Sonic.

"What are you doing?" Knuckles asked. "What's that thing you're holding?"

"The CUA… The Containment Unit of Abnormals. A military organization who hunt gifted mobians."

* * *

_**Waaah! This one was so hard to do! :O**_

_**Argh, why is it so hard to picture Sonic in a dramatic situation involving his past?! I feel like Sonic and Eggman were really out of character in this one…! (I really need to stop being paranoid)**_

_**It's hard to be objective over your own writing, so you guys tell me! D:**_

_**I will try to update as soon as I can. As always, please review, fav and follow!**_

_**I hope everyone is having a great summer ;)**_


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